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ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO 
ATLANTA - SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 




From the collection of Frederick II. Meserye, Esq.. New Fork Citj 




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ABRAHAM 
LINCOLN 

The BOY and the MAN 


BY 

JAMES MORGAN 

AUTHOR OF "THEODORE ROOSEVELT, THE BOY 
AND THE MAN " 


"THE CHILD IS FATHER OF 


THE MAN" 


NEW YORK 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

MCMVIII 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



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oct i )yub 

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XI I'd 10 

jOt-Y Li. 






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.OIOH** 



Copyright, 1908, 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1908. 



Norwood Press 

y. S. Cusbing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



TO H. M. 



FOREWORD 



"Abraham Lincoln, The Boy and the Man," 
is not a critical study, but a simple story. Its 
aim is to present in dramatic pictures the strug- 
gles and achievements of a common man, in 
whom the race of common men is exalted ; who 
solved great problems by the plain rules of com- 
mon sense and wrought great deeds by the 
exercise of the common qualities of honesty and 
courage, patience, justice, and kindness. That is 
the Lincoln who, on the centenary of his birth, 
stands forth as the true prophet of a reunited 
people and the noblest product of that democracy 
which is slowly uniting all peoples in fraternal 
bonds. 

In the preparation of this volume many authori- 
tative sources have been freely drawn upon for 
illustrative incidents, a grateful acknowledgment 
of which is made in the chapter entitled " A 
Course in Lincoln." 



Vll 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 
I. 


A Child of Poverty 


II. 


Life in the Indiana Wilderness 




III. 


The Awakening of Ambition 




IV. 


A Boyhood of Toil 




V. 


On the Prairies of Illinois 




VI. 


Wrestling with Destiny . 




VII. 


In the Legislature . 




VIII. 


Lover and Lawyer 




IX. 


Marriage and Politics 




X. 


In Congress . 




XI. 


Life on the Circuit 




XII. 


Home and Neighbors . , 




XIII. 


Called to his Life Mission 




XIV. 


"A House divided against Itsel 


f" 


XV. 


The Great Debate 




XVI. 


A National Figure 




XVII. 


The Standard Bearer 




XVIII. 


President-elect 




XIX. 


Going to Washington 





I 

9 

17 

2 3 

30 

39 

50 

58 

67 

75 

83 

97 

104 

116 

124 

'35 

143 

158 

170 



IX 





CONTENTS 




CHAPTER 




PAGE 


XX. 


The Inauguration 


. 179 


XXI. 


Called to the Helm in a Storm 


. 187 


XXII. 


" And the War Came " 


. 198 


XXIII. 


In the Gloom of Defeat 


. 215 


XXIV. 


A Break in the Clouds . 


. 234 


XXV. 


" Don't swap Horses while crossing th 


e River " 253 


XXVI. 


Life in the White House 


. 266 


XXVII. 


Lincoln and his Children 


. 284 


XXVIII. 


Lincoln and his Soldiers 


292 


XXIX. 


Lincoln the Emancipator 


• 3°7 


XXX. 


Lincoln and his Cabinet 


. 322 


XXXI. 


Lincoln and his Generals 


• 338 


XXXII. 


Lincoln in Victory 


. 358 


XXXIII. 


The Death of Lincoln . 


. 382 


XXXIV. 


Sorrow of the World . 


• 397 


XXXV. 


A Course in Lincoln 


. 407 


XXXVI. 


Lessons from Lincoln . 


. 417 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Abraham Lincoln .... 

The Birthplace of Lincoln 

The Creek in which the Boy Lincoln Fished 

An Example of Lincoln's Craftsmanship . 

Where Lincoln lived after his Marriage . 

The Earliest Portrait of Lincoln 

Lincoln in his Circuit-riding Days . 

Stephen A. Douglas 

Lincoln in his Prime . 

Life Mask of Lincoln . 

The Wigwam at Chicago 

The President-elect 

The Capitol in 1861 . 

President Lincoln in 1861 

Lincoln at Antietam 

An Interesting Lincoln Portrait 

Mrs. Lincoln 

xi 



Frontispiece 

FACING PAGB 

6 
16 

36 

72 
80 , 

94 
108 
130 
146' 
150 
160 
182 . 
216 
230 
254 
270 





LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 




FACING PAGE 


Willie and Tad Lincoln .... 


. 284 


The President and his Son .... 


. 288 


Lincoln and his Cabinet ..... 


. 322 


Lincoln and his Generals .... 


• 338 


The Springfield Home .... 


402 


St. Gaudens's Statue ..... 


. 4I8 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



CHAPTER I 

A CHILD OF POVERTY 



Abraham Lincoln born to Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln, in 
a log cabin on a farm near Hodgdenville, La Rue County, Ken- 
tucky, February 12, 1809. — Kentucky then a frontier state, 
to which Abraham's grandfather came about 1780, and where 
in 1784 he was killed by the Indians. — Narrow escape of 
Abraham's father, who became a wandering laborer, unable 
to read or write. — His rollicking marriage feast, June 12, 1806. 
— ■ Abraham's privations in childhood. — His tribute to a soldier 
of 1812. — Troubled by a bad land title and by slavery, the 
family leave Kentucky to make a new home in a free state. 

Abraham Lincoln was born to poverty and 
ignorance. A rude log cabin on a poor, scrub farm 
was his birthplace. His father could not read and 
could barely write his name. His mother could 
both read and write, but she knew little of books 
or the world. 

Their home was on the Kentucky frontier, and 
there was not yet a state in all the West that lay 
beyond them. Kentucky itself had been a savage 
waste only a few years before, that "dark and bloody 
ground" on which no white man had set foot. The 
generation of bold pioneers who had threaded their 
way over the Alleghanies in the steps of Daniel 
Boone were still on the scene, and the boy Lincoln 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



heard from their lips the moving story of how they 
had hewn a path for civilization across the mountains 
and wrested peace from the roving red men in hard- 
fought battles. 

His own grandfather, Abraham Lincoln, for 
whom he was named had been one of that band 
of brave homeseekers. This elder Abraham, like 
most of the Kentucky settlers, came from Virginia. 
He found the land a wilderness. The buffalo 
roamed the blue-grass fields, and as Boone said, 
"were more frequent than I have seen cattle in 
the settlements, browsing on the leaves of the cane, 
or cropping the herbage on these extensive plains, 
fearless because ignorant of the violence of man." 

Warlike tribes of Indians lurked in the giant 
forests, and the white men, clad in skins, needed 
always to be on guard for their lives. They were 
as ready with the knife as with the rifle, and could 
outrun and outfight the Indian. They were of the 
same daring breed as the hardy men who have 
pushed the frontier westward to the Pacific and 
been the pathfinders of the nation. 

Abraham Lincoln, the pioneer, took up a tract 
of land near where the city of Louisville now stands 
and built his home on it. There he was killed by 
the Indians while opening a farm. He was going 
to his day's work in the clearing when a shot rang 

2 



A CHILD OF POVERTY 



out from the brush and he fell dead. His three 
sons were with him at the time. One of the boys 
started on a run to summon aid from the nearest fort, 
for there were forts all over Kentucky, in which the 
people gathered and defended themselves when 
attacked. 

Another son fled to the cabin for a rifle. Seizing 
the gun he looked out and saw an Indian stooping 
over the third and youngest boy, who had been 
left beside the murdered father. To save him 
from the hands of the savage he must shoot 
quickly through a crack between the logs of the 
cabin wall, at the risk of killing his baby brother. 
He aimed at a white ornament on the Indian's 
breast and fired. His aim was true, and the red 
foe pitched forward dead. By this narrow chance 
the little fellow, Thomas, was spared to be the 
father of Abraham Lincoln. 

The elder Abraham was a man of some thrift, 
for when he sold his property in Virginia the sale 
brought him $600, and he was a man of some spirit, 
else he would not have been a Kentucky pioneer. 
His grandson has said of him that he was a member 
of one of the "undistinguished families — second 
families perhaps I should say," but the younger 
Abraham lived and died without any definite knowl- 
edge of his grandfather's origin. "I am more con- 

3 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



cerned," he said, "to know what his grandson 
will he." He knew only of a "vague tradition" 
that the grandfather had come from Pennsylvania 
to Virginia. Those who sought to set up ancestral 
claims for him failed to arouse his interest in the 
subject. 

It is the accepted belief now that he was descended 
from a Massachusetts family which migrated to 
Pennsylvania, thence to Virginia, and finally to 
Kentucky. This, moreover, is not a very proud 
boast, for his branch of the Massachusetts Lincolns 
was wholly unknown to fame and fortune. Thus 
his descent has been traced through seven 
generations, disclosing four farmers, a miller, a 
blacksmith, and a weaver. 

All that is known of Abraham Lincoln, the grand- 
father, indicates that he measured up to the average 
of the men around him, the sturdy state builders 
who founded the first commonwealth of the West. 
In his untimely death, his family suffered a dire 
misfortune. The new home was broken up. The 
widow moved to another county, while the boy 
who shot the Indian was so embittered by his ex- 
perience that for some time he hunted the redskins 
in a passion for revenge. 

Under the law, most of the property went to the 
oldest son. Thus Thomas, the youngest, was left 

4 



A CHILD OF POVERTY 



poor and "grew up literally without education," 
a "wandering, laboring boy," as his famous son has 
recorded. He developed into a man of stalwart 
body, five feet ten inches in height, and was honest 
and sober. Ambition, however, seemed to be crushed 
in him by the hard circumstances of his youth and, 
drifting about from one job to another, he steadily 
sank in social condition. He was as often called 
"Linkern" or "Linkorn" as Lincoln, because he 
himself did not know how to spell his name. 

Finally he became a carpenter and married Nancy 
Hanks, the niece of the man in whose shop he worked. 
The Hankses had come from Virginia in the same 
party with the Lincolns, and it had been Nancy's 
ill fortune to be set adrift, an orphan, much after 
the manner of her husband's lot in life. She was 
regarded as handsome in her girlhood, and one 
old neighbor declared long afterward, "The Hanks 
girls were great at camp-meetings. They were the 
finest singers and shouters in our county." 

The union of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks 
was celebrated in the rollicking manner of the time 
and place. Bear meat, venison, wild turkey, and 
duck graced the feast. There was maple sugar, 
"swung on a string to bite off for coffee or whiskey," 
there was syrup in big gourds, there were peaches 
and wild honey, and a sheep was cooked whole over 

5 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



wood coals in a pit. When Thomas went to house- 
keeping he was not so poor as to be without a cow, 
and he had "a good feather bed, a loom and wheel." 
He took his bride to a little cabin in the village no 
larger than one room of an ordinary dwelling. 

In spirit Nancy, who was twenty-three at her 
marriage, was much the superior of her twenty-eight- 
year-old husband, and she tried her best to teach him 
to read and write. His son frankly confessed, 
however, that his father "never did more in the 
way of writing than to bunglingly write his own 
name." 

With the birth of their first child, a daughter, 
the Lincolns were forced to the conclusion that a 
family could not be supported on what a carpenter 
could earn in a community where most men built 
their homes with their own hands, and they moved 
to a farm near the village. There, in a mere hut, 
on those poor, barren acres, Abraham Lincoln was 
born to Thomas and Nancy. His only cradle was 
his good mother's arms. His only playmate in 
his earliest childhood was his sister. His play- 
ground was the lonely forest. He had no toys, for 
toys cost money, and money was hardly ever seen 
in the Lincoln home. 

The father must raise or shoot what they ate, 
and the mother's restless fingers must spin and 

6 



A CHILD OF POVERTY 



weave what they wore. Free schools were then 
unknown in Kentucky; but his mother, poor as she 
was, insisted on sending Abraham and his sister 
to a teacher. He could fish in the Big South Fork, 
and once, as he was coming from the creek, the 
patriotic spirit aroused in his home by the War of 
1 8 12, then in progress, was put to the test. "I had 
been fishing one day," he said years afterward, 
"and caught a little fish, which I was taking home. 
I met a soldier in the road and, having been told 
that we must be good to the soldiers, I gave him my 
fish." 

After a few years of struggling, Thomas Lincoln 
began to long for the newer country to the west. 
The deed to his place was in dispute and he could 
not afford to buy another farm, because Kentucky 
was rapidly becoming a settled state and its good 
land was valuable. Moreover, the people with 
profitable farms were slaveholders. There were 
very few slaves in the Lincoln neighborhood, it is 
true ; the soil was not rich enough for such care- 
less labor. Still, Abraham Lincoln has said that 
his father's "removal was partly on account of 
slavery, but chiefly on account of the difficulty in 
land titles." 

The claim to the farm was sold for 400 gallons 
of whiskey and $20 in money, the whole amounting 

7 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



to $300. In those days, when there was no govern- 
ment tax on alcoholic spirits, any farmer was free to 
set up a still and make his corn into whiskey. There 
was indeed little else to do with corn, for there were 
no railroads to carry it to market, and it seldom 
sold for more than ten cents a bushel. When made 
into whiskey, however, it was easily traded. It was 
almost as good as money, which was extremely 
scarce. 

After Thomas had built a raft, he loaded the 
whiskey and his kit of tools on it. Leaving the 
family behind, he floated down the creek to the 
Ohio River and then across to the Indiana shore, 
where he chose some timber land for his new farm. 

On his return to Kentucky, the family made 
ready to go with him to their Indiana home. The 
last sad duty of the mother was to take Abraham 
and his sister to the burial place of her third child, 
and there drop her tears upon the sod before leaving 
forever the little grave in its unmarked desolation. 



CHAPTER II 

LIFE IN THE INDIANA WILDERNESS 



Removal of the Lincolns to a farm near Gentryville, Spencer 
County, Indiana, in the almost savage wilds of a new state, in 
1816. — Their home, amid a primitive people, a mere hut, with 
no floor but the bare earth. — Abraham sleeping on a bed of 
leaves in the loft and growing up without education. — Wield- 
ing the axe in the primeval forest. — His one shot. — Death of 
his mother, October 5, 1818. — A desolate cabin. — Marriage 
of Thomas Lincoln and Sarah Bush Johnston at Elizabethtown, 
Kentucky, December 2, 1819. — The new mother transformed 
the rude home. — A family of nine living in one room. 

Abraham Lincoln was only seven years old 
when, his sister beside him, he trudged behind his 
father and mother into the trackless wilds of southern 
Indiana. All the possessions of the family were 
loaded on the backs of two borrowed horses, and 
three days were required to make the journey of 
eighteen miles from the Ohio River to the new home 
on Little Pigeon Creek, for Thomas Lincoln had to 
cut his way with an axe through the primeval 
forest. The land he had chosen was covered with 
a dense growth of timber, and no shelter awaited 
him and his family. He must hasten to cut down 
a lot of young saplings in order to build a shed of 
poles. This was the home. It shielded the family 

9 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



only on three sides, — an open-faced camp, as it was 
called. 

The home built, a field had to be quickly cleared 
on which to raise the necessary food. Abraham, 
young as he was, lent a hand, for he was 
large for his age and could swing an axe. While 
his father assailed the big trees, he chopped away 
the rank underbrush. He dropped the seed in the 
stumpy field in the light of the moon and planted 
potatoes in the dark of the moon, as all the wise 
folk of the region did. The minds of the early 
Hoosiers were filled with ancient superstitions, and 
they were governed in their daily lives by signs and 
charms. 

It was a wild country, inhabited by a primitive 
race. Indiana had only just been admitted to the 
Union as a state when the Lincolns took up their 
home within its borders. The court-house of the 
county in which they lived was made of logs. The 
grand jury sat on a log in the woods, and it was 
noted of one trial jury that there was not a pair 
of shoes among them, for nearly every one wore 
moccasins. 

The settlers dressed, as the Indians before them, 
in the skin of the deer, and never were without 
their rifles and their long side knives. A farmer's 
only implements were the axe, the rifle, the maul, 

10 



LIFE IN THE INDIANA WILDERNESS 

the plough, and the scythe. The brier of the wild 
thorn was the only pin in a woman's toilet. Tea 
was brewed from roots dug in the woods. 

House raisings and hunting parties were the 
main social pleasures known to the widely scattered 
pioneers, aside from the rare event of a wedding, 
when the people gathered uninvited, and, with 
practical jokes and all manner of boisterous sport, 
persecuted the poor bride and groom by night and 
day. On the hunts, all the game was driven into 
a common center, where it was slaughtered. Every 
table depended on the rifle. There was a salt 
"lick" in the creek near the Lincoln cabin, to which 
the deer came, and thus Thomas easily kept his 
family supplied with meat. 

Abraham cared nothing for shooting, and the one 
record of his hunting comes from his own pen in 
after life. "A few days after the completion of 
his eighth year," he wrote of himself, "in the ab- 
sence of his father, a flock of wild turkeys approached 
the new log cabin, and Abraham, with a rifle gun, 
standing inside, shot through a crack and killed 
one of them. He has never since pulled trigger on 
any larger game." 

This new log cabin was built by Thomas Lincoln 
the second year of his life in Indiana. His family 
lived in the open-faced pole camp through all the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



freezing storms of one winter. In the spring the 
miserable habitation was turned over to some 
Hankses, who had followed their cousin Nancy 
from Kentucky, and the Lincolns moved into the 
new home; but even its walls apparently had cracks 
through which a rifle could be fired at a wild turkey. 

Moreover, it had neither a floor nor a window. 
The poor dwellers within its rude shelter actually 
lived on the bare earth, which turned to mud in 
the winter thaws. To shut out the sleet and snow, 
there was not even a skin to hang over the hole 
which served for a doorway. In one corner of the 
only room, two poles stuck between the logs made 
a bedstead. Nimbly climbing up on pegs driven 
into the wall, Abraham slept on a heap of loose 
leaves in the loft. Not a piece of crockery was 
there in the cabin. Tin and pewter and gourds 
were the table ware. 

The aim was to raise only enough corn to keep 
the meal box supplied and enough wheat for cakes 
on Sunday. It hardly paid to raise more, for corn 
brought little or nothing, and wheat only twenty- 
five cents a bushel, so far was the farm from the 
market. Besides, Thomas Lincoln never was a 
good farmer, and sometimes the family had nothing 
but potatoes to eat. A neighbor declares that even 
these were not always cooked, for he recollects 

12 



LIFE IN THE INDIANA WILDERNESS 

eating raw potatoes at the Lincolns' ; it was not 
always easy to build a fire before the days of matches. 
Abraham Lincoln long afterward said with simple 
sadness in speaking of this period of his life, "They 
were pretty pinching times." 

Malaria lurked in the deep glades of the forest, 
and pestilence was bred by the ignorant habits of 
the people. A large part of the population was 
stricken by a disease known to the backwoods as 
milk sickness. The wife of Thomas Lincoln, 
crushed in spirit by the hard fortunes of the family 
through two winters, and bent in body 'under the 
burdens of a frontier household, fell an easy prey 
to this epidemic. 

There was no physician within thirty-five miles, 
and the swift fever burned her life out while her 
helpless husband and children watched by her bed. 
As the end drew near, Abraham knelt sobbing be- 
side his dying mother, while she laid her hand on 
his young head and gave him her last message, 
telling him to be good to his father and sister, and 
calling on all to be good to one another, to love their 
kin, and to worship God. 

When the wearied soul was gone, the broken 
body was shrived by the Lincolns and the Hankses, 
there in the isolation of their forest home. Thomas 
himself felled the pine tree and cut out the green 

13 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



boards, which he pegged together for the rude 
coffin. In a shallow grave on a knoll near by, with- 
out a spoken prayer, but bitterly wept by children 
and kindred, all that could die of Nancy Hanks 
Lincoln was tenderly lowered to that rest which 
was denied her in life. As long as he lived, her 
son held her in reverence as his "angel mother," and 
there is a tradition that sometime after her burial, 
the sorrowing boy induced a traveling preacher 
to deliver a sermon and say a prayer above her 
grave. 

With this death, that which made a home of the 
bare hut, a wife's devotion and a mother's love, 
was gone, and the widower and the orphaned were 
left in desolation to face a hard and dreary winter. 
After a short time of despair, the father rose to the 
practical necessity of his situation and went back to 
Kentucky to seek out a new head for his house and 
a mother for his family. 

On this mission, he made a wise choice. Find- 
ing that one whom he had known in his youth was 
widowed, he courted her with such despatch 
that they were married the next morning. 

When Thomas returned to Little Pigeon Creek 
with his tall, curly-haired bride and her son and 
two daughters, a four-horse team was needed to 
carry her property, for she was rich in comparison 

14 



LIFE IN THE INDIANA WILDERNESS 

with her groom. The forlorn, neglected little boy, 
Abraham, who was growing up like a weed, looked 
with wondering eyes as he helped unload the fine 
things. A bureau, that must have cost $50, was 
among them. There was an extra feather bed 
to take the place of his pallet in the loft, and at 
last he was to have a pillow for his head. There 
were also homespun blankets and quilts, a flax 
wheel, and a soap kettle. 

The new mistress ordered a wash-stand to be 
set up beside the doorway, and she scrubbed the 
children and fitted them out with decent clothing. 
She gave Abraham a linsey-woolsey shirt of her 
own make to take the place of his old deerskin shirt. 
Her husband was driven to make and hang a door, 
lay a floor, cut a window, and to grease some paper 
with which to cover it and let in the light. 

Abraham had so far forgotten the little he had 
learned in the Kentucky school that now, though 
ten years old, he could not write. Yet somehow 
he had become the leader of the household. With- 
out schools or books, his only chance to learn was 
from wayfarers, and on such occasions he showed 
a thirst for knowledge which annoyed his father, 
who could not sympathize with the inquiring mind 
of his boy. As he sat perched on the fence in front 
of the cabin, he would ask questions as long as any 

15 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



passer-by would tarry to answer him, or until his 
father sent him away. 

One day a wagon broke down in the road, and 
the wife and two daughters of the owner stayed at 
the Lincolns' until it was repaired. "The woman 
had books," as Abraham recalled in later life, "and 
read us stories. They were the first I ever heard." 
There never had been a book or a newspaper in 
the house, and he never forgot the sight of those 
pages nor the woman who, by the chance of a 
breakdown on the road, opened to his mind the 
field of printed knowledge. 

Hope and happiness entered the little cabin in 
the wilderness at the call of its thrifty and vigorous 
housewife, crowded though it was, for with the 
husband and wife, their five children, and two 
Hankses who had come to live with them, a family 
of nine dwelt in peace in its one room. There 
seemed to be a special harmony between Mrs. 
Lincoln and Abraham. "His mind," she said, 
"and mine — what little I had — seemed to run 
together." She shared her heart with her hus- 
band's children and sanctified the name of step- 
mother. 



16 



CHAPTER III 

THE AWAKENING OF AMBITION 



Learning life's lessons and building character amid poverty, toil, 
and sorrow. — Abraham starting to school at ten. — Walking 
nine miles a day to and fro. — Eager to study. — Ciphering on 
a wooden shovel and making notes on the logs of his cabin. — 
His passion for books — borrowing and reading all the volumes 
within a fifty-mile circle. — Working three days to pay for 
a damaged book. — Only a few months' schooling in all. 

"It was a wild region, with many bears and 
other wild animals still in the woods. There I 
grew up. There were some schools, so called, 
but no qualification was ever required of a teacher 
beyond 'readin', writin', and cipherin' to the rule 
of three.' If a straggler supposed to understand 
Latin happened to sojourn in the neighborhood, 
he was looked upon as a wizard. There was ab- 
solutely nothing to excite ambition for education." 
— Abraham Lincoln, in his own life sketch. 

Nevertheless it was in those backwoods of Indiana 

that the ambition of Lincoln was awakened. There, 

out of poverty and toil and sorrow, the sturdy nature 

of the child was woven, and there the man was 

born, sprung from the very earth. The wild forest 

was his university, and it taught him more than 
c I7 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



many boys learn in academic groves, for it taught 
him to use his hand as well as his head, and to think 
and act for himself. His mental growth was slow 
and did not cease while he lived; but morally, his 
character seemed to come almost to its full stature 
in mere boyhood. 

His noble stepmother insisted that all her children 
should be sent to school, though the fee for the 
teacher must have been a heavy burden for the 
Lincolns. The father knew nothing of school, and 
cared no more. To him it was a sheer waste of 
time, and he needed what the labor of the boys 
could earn. 

There were no schoolhouses in southern Indiana. 
A roving teacher could hold sessions only in some 
tumble-down cabin. Mean as the opportunity 
was to gain an education in such a hovel, the boy 
Lincoln seized it eagerly. At one time he had to 
walk nine miles a day in going to and from school. 

The road he traveled probably was no more than 
a mere deer path through the lonely woods, but he 
loved the solitude. The noon lunch, which he 
carried in his pocket, was only a corn-dodger, a 
cake made from coarse meal. He would study 
all day Sunday, for there was no church to attend, 
and every minute he could steal as he went about 
his Saturday chores he gave to his lessons. The 

18 



THE AWAKENING OF AMBITION 

poor father hated the sight of a thing so useless to 
himself as a book, and the stepmother had to beg 
him to let Abraham read at home. 

To practise his lessons in arithmetic he used 
a wooden shovel, for he had no slate, paper was 
scarce, and there was not a lead pencil in the house. 
When he had covered the shovel with his sums 
done in charcoal, he would scrape off the figures and 
thus be ready for a fresh start. He scrawled his 
notes from his books all over the logs of his cabin 
and on any piece of board he could pick up. This 
spirit naturally sent him to the head of his class with 
a bound. He gained such readiness in spelling that 
he soon "spelled down" the entire school, and at 
last was barred from spelling matches, so it is said. 

Writing was another of his favorite studies, and 
he acquired a good, clear hand. This assured 
him the proud position of the letter-writer for 
the family and their illiterate neighbors. One of 
the earliest Lincoln manuscripts in existence was 
written by him as a form for a friend: — 

" Good boys, who to their books apply, 
Will all be great men by and by." 

He no sooner could read than he took fire with 
a passion for books. He had none at home, and there 
was no public library. Wherever he heard of 

19 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



a book, near or far, he went afoot to see the owner, 
and borrowed it and kept it until he had de- 
voured all there was between its covers. In this 
way he found and read "^Esop's Fables," Bun van's 
"Pilgrim's Progress," "Robinson Crusoe," and a 
history of the United States. 

To retain for reference the things he liked best, 
he bought a note-book, into which he copied his 
favorite selections. His pen was made from the 
quill of a turkey buzzard and his ink from the 
juice of a brier root. 

A dictionary coming to his hand, he read it, 
page by page, day after day, until the last ray of 
light had faded. In later years he said that if 
any one used a word or phrase in his hearing which 
he could not understand, it always had made him 
angry. He remembered as a boy climbing to his 
loft in a rage more than once on this account, and 
walking the floor far into the night, while trying to 
work out the meaning of something he had heard. 
He could not sleep until he had solved the puzzle 
and found a way to state the same idea in the 
plainest words. 

Even a copy of the statutes of Indiana fell a prey 
to the timber boy's wild hunger for knowledge. 
He read it through as eagerly as if it had been a 
detective story. Nor was he poorly rewarded, 

20 



THE AWAKENING OF AMBITION 

for it not only contained the Constitution of 
the United States, but it also introduced him to 
the Declaration of Independence. It held, too, the 
Ordinance of 1787, by which Indiana and all 
the country between the Ohio and the Mississippi 
had been dedicated to freedom in these simple 
and now familiar terms: "There shall be neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude in said territory, 
otherwise than in the punishment of crime, whereof 
the party shall have been duly convicted." Indeed, 
that worn and forbidding volume gave him a better 
understanding of the government of his country 
than many big schools impart to their pupils. 

Among his other borrowings was a copy of 
Weems's "Life of Washington," from which he 
drew the inspiring lessons of that immortal career 
and of the War of the Revolution. Those lessons 
sank deep into his youthful mind. After the lapse 
of a generation, he recalled in a speech to the men 
of '6 1, Weems's stories of the battles fought and 
hardships endured by the men of '76. "You all 
know," he said, "for you have all been boys, how 
these early impressions last longer than any others. 
I recollect thinking then, boy even though I was, 
that there must have been something more than 
common that those men struggled for. I am ex- 
ceedingly anxious that that thing . . . shall be 

21 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



perpetuated in accordance with the original idea 
for which that struggle was made." 

He had still another reason for remembering 
that book. He was so charmed by the tale that 
he carried it with him when he mounted to his 
loft, and there he lay in bed and read its pages until 
his bit of tallow had burned out. Then he poked 
the volume in a chink in the wall, where he could 
put his hands on it the minute he woke in the morn- 
ing. A driving rain in the night came through the 
cracks and soaked the book. The man who had 
lent it to him claimed damages and made Lincoln 
pull fodder in his corn-field for three full days. 
Nevertheless he went on borrowing right and left, 
until he felt assured he had read every book within 
a fifty-mile circle. 

His total schooling amounted to much less than 
a year. He attended from time to time until he 
was nineteen; but each time his father felt obliged 
to take him out after a few weeks. When his labor 
was not required at home, the father was in need 
of the few cents a day which the boy could earn 
by working for other farmers, for the wolf of want 
was always at the door of the Lincoln cabin. 



22 



CHAPTER IV 

A BOYHOOD OF TOIL 



Stories of the giant strength of the youthful Lincoln. — Hired out 
by his father at twenty-five cents a day. — Rated as lazy by his 
employers, because his heart was not in his rough work while 
he dreamed of the great world without. — Walking fifteen miles 
to hear lawyers argue in court and haranguing his fellow-laborers 
from stumps in the fields. — Writing essays on morals and 
politics. — Hailed as the village jester. — Became a flatboat- 
man. — How he earned his first dollar. — The earliest monu- 
ment to Lincoln reared by a boy friend. 

Lincoln's figure shot up rapidly from his eleventh 
year, and at nineteen he had grown to his full height 
of six feet, four inches. He was wiry, and of rugged 
health, swarthy in complexion, and his face was 
shriveled not unlike that of an old man. The 
strangely serious look, so marked in his bearing 
through life, had already come into his countenance. 

The unreflecting rustics about him simply set him 
down as queer, as they saw this youth of strange 
moods pass in a flash from gay to grave. His tight 
buckskin breeches were "drawn up" in the rains, 
until twelve inches of blue, bony shins were exposed 
in the gap between them and the tops of his low 
shoes, and on his head he wore a coonskin cap. 
"Longshanks" was his descriptive nickname. 

Wonderful stories are told of the giant strength 

2 3 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



of his boyhood, of his picking up and moving a 
chicken house, weighing 600 pounds, and bearing 
off a great log while three men were disputing as 
to how they should unite to lift it. "His axe would 
flash and bite into a sugar tree or a sycamore," 
Dennis Hanks has said, "and if you heard him 
felling trees in a clearing, you would say there were 
three men at work by the way the trees fell." 

Lincoln and his sister were both "hired out" 
to the more prosperous neighbors, whenever there 
was a demand for their services. One woman re- 
called, in her old age, the time when the boy worked 
for her husband and slept in their loft. She praised 
him for knowing how "to keep his place" and for 
not coming where he was not wanted. He would 
lift his hat and bow when he entered her house, 
and was tender and kind, "like his sister." 

A day's work was from sunrise to sunset, and for 
this he received a quarter of a dollar, but if he missed 
any slight part of the long day, he was docked. 
The reward for his labor did not go to him, how- 
ever, but to his father, to whom he owed all his 
time until the noon of his twenty-first birthday. 
He had no spending money and felt little need of 
any. Money was not what he longed for. It was 
not the object of the ambition which gnawed like 
hunger within him. 

24 



A BOYHOOD OF TOIL 



Already he stood apart and alone. He was with, 
but not of, the backwoodsmen, among whom he 
toiled and jested. His thoughts and his dreams 
had borne him out of their forest world and far 
away from the tasks of his hands. His heart was 
not in hoeing and wood-chopping. He slaughtered 
hogs, swung the axe and the scythe, and wielded 
the flail, but he could not put the man into the work. 
His employers knew it and rightfully found fault. 
"I say he was awfully lazy," one of them insisted 
nearly half a century afterward. "He worked 
for me, but he was always reading and thinking. 
He said to me one day his father taught him to 
work, but he didn't teach him to love it." 

This man did not take into his calculations the 
fact that his big, lazy hired hand would walk farther 
and work harder to get an old book than any one 
else around him would walk or work to get a new 
dollar bill. In vain his father tried to get such fool- 
ishness out of his son's head and induce him to learn 
practical things ; the boy was a great, strong fellow, 
and it was time he made something out of himself. 

The father was anxious for him to be a carpenter, 
but he could not excite the young man's enthusiasm. 
He would do the day's work, as it was given him 
to do and after his own fashion, and that was all. 
He would rather, any time, tramp off to the county 

25 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



seat, some fifteen miles away, and listen to lawyers 
argue. For days afterward he would be a lawyer, 
holding mock trials in the fields and delivering 
speeches from stumps, while the other hands gathered 
around him, to the indignation of the farmer. 

Only one newspaper came to the neighboring 
village, and Lincoln delighted to go to the store and 
read aloud to the unlettered throng its reports of 
debates in Congress and its news from the great 
world. Some of his views startled the entire country- 
side. He insisted, for instance, the earth was round, 
that the sun did not move, and that the moon did 
not come up or go down, but that instead "we do 
the sinking." 

Hating to see even dumb creatures mistreated, 
he wrote an essay on "Cruelty to Animals," although 
many years were to pass before the first society was 
formed in their defence. He wrote a paper on 
"Temperance," although there was yet no organized 
movement in that direction and the very word was 
without meaning to the average person. 

Humor mingled with earnestness in the nature 
of the youth. He joked and frolicked as well as 
studied and argued. He wrote rhymes on passing 
events and sometimes had to back up his rough 
satires with his big fists. He celebrated in verse 
the long, crooked nose of the man who made him 

26 



A BOYHOOD OF TOIL 



work out the damage to the borrowed book, and 
took revenge in the same way when he was not 
invited to a wedding in the family of the rich man 
of the village. If he began to tell stories at the 
cross-roads store, the loungers crowded the place, 
and sometimes he held his roaring audience until 
midnight. 

All the while he longed for the wider world 
without; but he respected his father's right to his 
labor. He eagerly welcomed the chance to go 
down to the river to help the ferryman in the rough- 
est toil at thirty-seven cents a day, for there he was 
at last on the great highway of trade and travel. 
While working on the river, he found his way to 
a lawyer's library, where he could read half the 
night. 

In those surroundings he wrote a paper on the 
" American Government," in which he urged the 
necessity of preserving the Constitution and main- 
taining the Union. The lawyer, when he had read 
this appeal, declared the "world couldn't beat it," 
and would have taken him into his office, only the 
youth insisted his parents were so poor they could 
not spare him as a breadwinner. 

When a flatboatman offered him $8 a month, he 
went as bow-hand, and thus standing forward, poled 
the craft down the Ohio and the Mississippi to New 

27 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Orleans. While idling about the river before start- 
ing on that voyage, a little incident happened which 
he always described as an important event in his life. 
It is the story of the way he earned his first dollar by 
taking two men and their trunks to a steamer which 
waited for them in midstream. 

"I was about eighteen years of age," he said, 
"and belonged, as you know, to what they call 
down South the 'scrubs.' I was very glad to have 
the chance of earning something, and supposed 
each of the men would give me a couple of bits. 
I sculled them out to the steamer. They got on 
board, and I lifted the trunks and put them on the 
deck. The steamer was about to put on steam 
again, when I called out, 'You have forgotten to 
pay me.' Each of them took from his pocket a 
silver half-dollar and threw it on the bottom of 
my boat. 

"You may think it was a very little thing, and 
in these days it seems to me like a trifle, but it was 
a most important incident in my life. I could 
scarcely credit that I, the poor boy, had earned 
a dollar in less than a day; that by honest work 
I had earned a dollar. I was a more hopeful and 
thoughtful boy from that time." 






When Abraham came of age, his father decided 
to leave Indiana. The son could no longer be 

28 






A BOYHOOD OF TOIL 



expected to stay on the unpromising farm in the 
timber, and his sister had lately died in young wife- 
hood. One of the Hankses had gone to the new state 
of Illinois, and his reports of the country induced 
the Lincolns to follow him. 

The people generally were sorry to lose the young 
man whose strong hands always had been ready 
to help any one in need and whose droll ways had 
made him the favorite character in the community. 
As he was leaving the dreary scene of so much sad- 
ness and struggle, a boyhood companion planted 
a cedar in memory of him, and that little tree was 
the first monument raised in honor of Abraham 
Lincoln. 



29 



CHAPTER V 

ON THE PRAIRIES OF ILLINOIS 



The Lincolns leave Indiana for Illinois, March, 1830, Abraham 
driving his father's ox team. — Building the new home on the 
Sangamon, and splitting rails for a fence. — Bidding farewell 
to the humble roof of his parents. — Once more a flatboatman 
in 1 831 . — His strange introduction to New Salem. — Stirred 
to indignation by the sight of a slave auction in New Orleans. 
— Keeping store in New Salem, where he arrived in the sum- 
mer of 183 1 . — Winning the title of "Honest Abe." — Battling 
with frontier roughs. — Failure of the store. — Studying and 
dreaming. 

In moving to Illinois, Thomas Lincoln resumed 
the westward journey which his ancestor had begun 
at Plymouth Rock and which had continued through 
seven generations of Lincolns. 

An ox team drew the family and its scanty pos- 
sessions from Indiana to Illinois, and Abraham 
was the driver. The wagon wheels were without 
spokes, being mere rounded blocks of wood, cut 
from the trunk of an oak tree, and with a hole in 
the center for the axle. There were neither roads 
nor bridges. Creeks and rivers had to be forded. 
The trails through the Hoosier forests were broken 
by the February thaw, while the prairies of Illinois 
were a sea of mud. 

30 



ON THE PRAIRIES OF ILLINOIS 

Across those great stretches of level and fertile 
land, ready to spring into richest gardens at the 
lightest touch of man, the Lincolns wended their 
toilsome way until they came to the meaner soil 
of the timber country on the Sangamon River, 
where they chose to pitch their new home. All 
the early settlers shunned the broad, open country 
as a desert. They had always lived in the woods, 
in the older states whence they came, and, though 
they saw the tall grass waving and the flowers 
rioting in bloom on these wide plains, they could 
not believe nature had been generous enough to 
clear the land for the use of man. 

The Lincolns, therefore, as the rest, sought a 
place like that which they had left in Indiana, and 
no better. There they went to felling trees and 
hewing the logs for their cabin and ploughing a field 
among the stumps. Abraham's was the leading 
hand in this work, as well as in splitting the walnut 
rails for a fence. 

With the first winter came a season of utter dreari- 
ness, celebrated in local history to this day as the 
winter of the deep snow. The snow lay three feet 
on a level, when a freezing rain followed and crusted 
it. For weeks the people could not leave their 
cabins. No doubt young Lincoln's desire for 
another life than that which had been his 

3 1 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



from birth, was strengthened in this desolate 
period. 

When spring came, he left his father's humble 
roof forever. He was twenty-two and had duti- 
fully given to his parent all his labor through the 
years since childhood. He had helped him build his 
new home and clear and fence his new farm, as 
well as plant and harvest his first crop. 

Now, with his axe over his shoulder and all his 
other belongings in a little bundle, he started out 
for himself. At first he worked about the neighbor- 
hood, splitting rails and doing whatever was given 
him to do. If he saw a book, he read it, and he 
amazed the rustics with his speechmaking on various 
subjects. He even ventured to reply to a political 
speaker, and in this, his first joint debate, he won 
not only the applause of the audience in the field, 
but the praise of his opponent as well. 

While knocking about in this way, he happened 
upon a man who engaged him at fifty cents a day 
to go on a flatboat to New Orleans, with the promise 
of an added sum of money if the venture succeeded. 
He paddled the Sangamon in a canoe to the point 
where he fitted up the raft, on which he floated down 
the river until, unfortunately, it was stranded on 
a dam in front of New Salem. All the village 
flocked to the scene of the excitement, and the 

3 2 



ON THE PRAIRIES OF ILLINOIS 

wise men ashore offered their noisy advice to the 
crew. 

One member of that crew moved the crowd to 
laughter. He was a tall, gaunt, sad-faced young 
man. His coat was ragged, his hat was battered; 
and his trousers of torn and patched homespun, 
with nearly half of one of the legs missing, com- 
pleted a picture that was forlorn indeed. He neither 
looked at the grinning people on the bank, nor 
said a word in reply to their gibes. He had thought 
out in his own mind a way to get over the dam. 
He met the emergency without turning to any one 
for advice, and in due time the boat floated onward 
and from view, the grotesque figure of the youthful 
Lincoln standing on the deck, pole in hand. 

After the cargo of corn and hogs had been landed 
and sold in New Orleans, Lincoln and John Hanks 
went about the city to see the sights. One of those 
sights made an impression on Lincoln's mind 
which the years did not efface and to which in after 
time he never could refer without emotion. It was 
a slave auction, and, as he came to it, he saw a young 
woman standing on the block, while the auctioneer 
shouted her good points. He saw her driven around 
the mart, exhibited and examined as if she were 
a horse, in that circle of sordid dealers in human 
flesh. This was slavery in its ugliest aspect, and 
D 33 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Lincoln was stirred to the depths of his nature. 
"If I ever get a chance to hit this thing," he de- 
clared to John Hanks, according to the story which 
the latter has given to history, "I'll hit it hard." 

From New Orleans, the fiatboatmen returned 
by steamer to St. Louis. Thence Lincoln walked 
across Illinois to his father's farm. After visiting 
his family there, he went on his way until he came 
again to New Salem, where his boat had stuck on 
the dam. His employer in the boating enterprise 
had decided to open a store in that village of twenty 
log houses and one hundred population, and Lincoln 
was to help him. He walked into the little settle- 
ment to find that the merchant and his merchandise 
had not yet arrived. Every one remembered him 
as the silent, strange, and ingenious young man 
who had freed the flatboat from its obstruction, 
and his easy good nature and droll remarks won 
him a hearty welcome among the people, who, 
a few months before, had jeered at him from the 
river bank. 

Another distinction awaited him. An election 
was to be held, and penmanship not being a com- 
mon accomplishment in New Salem, Lincoln was 
asked if he could write a good hand. He answered 
he "could make a few rabbit tracks on paper," 
and he was selected to help the clerk of the election, 

34 



ON THE PRAIRIES OF ILLINOIS 

a post which brought him in touch with all the 
voters and which also brought him a small but 
needed sum of money. The stories he told at the 
polls that day increased the popular favor in which 
he was held, and half a hundred years later old 
men, with smiling satisfaction, retold them to a new 
generation. 

At last the new store was opened. The ambition 
of the owner was not content with this one venture, 
and he bought the mill as well. Lincoln was placed 
in charge of both businesses, for his employer had 
unlimited faith in him and his all-round ability. 
He boasted that his clerk was the best man in New 
Salem and could beat any one, fighting, wrestling, 
or running. The villagers were willing to admit, 
of one accord, that the young stranger was a mighty 
clever fellow, but the sweeping assertion of the 
merchant led to more or less argument, and was 
looked upon by some as a challenge. 

The Clary's Grove boys, a "generous parcel of 
rowdies," who "could trench a pond, dig a bog, build 
a house," who "could pray and fight, make a village, 
or create a state," were open doubters. They 
even risked $10 in a bet with the merchant that 
their chief bully, Jack Armstrong, was a better 
man than his clerk. Lincoln held back. He had 
no desire to fight. 

35 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



The merchant, however, was very much in earnest, 
and so were the Clary's Grove boys. A man had 
to win their favor, and failing to win it, New Salem 
was no place for him. The big, good-natured new- 
comer finally consented, and all the village flocked 
to the battle-field. Lincoln's weight is given as 
214 pounds at that time, but the long reach of his 
muscular arm was his strongest point, and he 
quickly seized Jack Armstrong by the throat and 
beat the air with him, to the admiration of the crowd, 
including the Clary's Grove boys and even Jack 
himself. 

The verdict of the battle was loyally accepted 
by all, and the winner became the sworn friend 
then and thenceforth of every man for miles around. 
His admirers never ceased to brag about the things 
he could do, and one of their favorite pastimes was 
to arrange feats of strength for him to perform. 
It is a tradition that once he raised a barrel of whiskey 
from the ground and lifted it until, standing erect, 
he could drink from the bung-hole, refusing, however, 
to swallow the liquor, for he always set before the 
community in his own life a much-needed example 
of total abstinence. Another legend represents 
him as having lifted, by means of ropes and straps 
fastened about his hips, a box of stones, weighing 
nearly 1000 pounds. 

36 




From the collection of II W. Fay, Esq., lit- K:ill>, 111. 

A Yoke which is treasured as an Example of Lincoln's 
Craftsmanship 



ON THE PRAIRIES OF ILLINOIS 

His neighbors respected him for his strength of 
character as well as for his strength of body. If 
a wagon stalled in the crooked, muddy lane, 
which was the only street of New Salem, he was 
among the first to go to the aid of the driver. If 
a widow were in need of firewood, he cut it for 
her. He watched with the sick, and any chance 
for kindness, from splitting a log to rocking a cradle, 
found his hand always ready to serve. If he made 
a mistake in weight or change across his counter, 
he did not sleep until he had corrected the error, 
though sometimes he tramped miles into the country 
in order to find the customer whom he had innocently 
wronged. All relied on his sincerity, and thus, 
while hardly more than a boy, he came to be hailed 
as "Honest Abe." 

He was not, however, a successful business man. 
He would rather lie on the counter, his head resting 
on a pile of calico, and study a grammar, which he 
had walked six miles to borrow, than cultivate 
trade. Sometimes intending purchasers found him 
not in the store at all, and had to call him from 
the wayside, where he was sprawling on the grass, 
covering a wrapping-paper with problems in mathe- 
matics. While a sale was pending or in a lull in 
social conversation, he was likely to pull out a book 
and lose himself in the pages of Tom Paine, Voltaire, 

37 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Rollin, or Gibbon, rare copies of whose works he 
had come upon in that rude hamlet on the remote 
frontier. 

In less than a year the merchant had failed and 
his clerk was adrift again, free to ramble about the 
village, the life of its groups of loiterers, or to sit 
all day beside the eccentric old fisherman on the 
banks of the Sangamon and listen to his quotations 
from the poetry of Shakespeare and Burns ; or 
else, silently to walk the street, absorbed in a book, 
speaking to no one and seeing no one. He earned 
enough by an occasional job to keep him, for he 
never let himself become dependent on others. 

There was a moral dignity about him which the 
villagers felt and respected. They did not rate 
him a loafer, but they did feel he was wasting his 
hours. Those bustling planners and builders of 
New Salem could not know that this dreamer among 
them was planning and building for all time, while 
the village they were rearing would in a few years 
be but a cow pasture and remembered among men 
only because fate had selected it as a station in the 
progress of Abraham Lincoln : — 



" For the dreamer lives forever, 
And the toiler dies in a day." 



38 



CHAPTER VI 

WRESTLING WITH DESTINY 



Lincoln already marked out for leadership. — Chosen a captain in 
the Black Hawk War, an honor which pleased him more than 
any other. — Saving the life of the only Indian he saw in the 
campaign against the red men in the spring of 1832. — Search- 
ing for his place in life. — Entering politics. — Defeated for 
the Legislature in August, 1832. — High finance in New Salem. 
— Lincoln's failure as a trust magnate. — A heavy burden of 
debt. — His first sight of Blackstone. — Doing chores about 
the village. — A barefoot law student. — Appointed post- 
master May 7, 1833, he carried his office in his hat. — Sur- 
veyor. — Crushed by a creditor, saved by a friend. — His 
gratitude. 

Homeless and unemployed, Lincoln was glad 
to respond to the Governor's call for volunteers, 
when Black Hawk, the old Indian chief, took the 
war path in Illinois. The scene of the conflict was 
far removed from the Sangamon, but the chance 
for a campaign aroused the spirit of adventure in 
the young pioneers about New Salem. 

When the company from that neighborhood met, 
many of the soldiers wished Lincoln to be their 
captain. At the election, he and the one other can- 
didate for the post took up positions apart, and 
their followers rallied around them. By far the 
larger number went over to Lincoln's side, and thus 

39 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



he was chosen. It was an honor which he said 
long afterward pleased him more than any that 
had come to him. 

He really cared nothing for the little military 
glory there was in it, and he never wore the title 
of captain after the war was over. That those 
among whom he had come only a year before, 
without friends and without a name, had singled 
him out for leadership, filled him with satisfaction. 
Doubtless it caused him to feel that his secret dreams 
of a higher destiny were coming true. 

He knew nothing of his new duties and took little 
trouble to learn. The story is told that when his men 
came to a narrow gate, he could only shout at them, 
"This company will break ranks for two minutes 
and form again on the other side of that gate." 
A more experienced commander would have had 
his troubles in reducing that band of rough merry- 
makers to martial discipline, and Captain Lincoln 
bore with entire good humor the various forms of 
disgrace which they brought upon their commanding 
officer. 

He was arrested and his sword taken from him 
for one day, because a member of his company 
fired a gun within the limits of the camp. At an- 
other time, when some of his men made a night raid 
on the headquarters' provisions, their captain had 

40 



WRESTLING WITH DESTINY 

to pay for their frolic by wearing a wooden sword 
two days. He even permitted them to draw him 
into a wrestling match with a champion from a rival 
command, and they had the humiliation of seeing 
their captain thrown. When his company was 
mustered out of the service and disbanded, Lincoln, 
with no vanity of rank, enlisted as a private in a 
cavalry troop. 

The fortunes of war, however, did not bring him 
within sight of Black Hawk or within sound of battle. 
Indeed, instead of slaying Indians, he saved the life 
of the only red man with whom he came in contact. 
This was an old Indian, who bore a pass as a trusted 
friend of the whites. He was set upon by a crowd 
of soldiers, who pretended to think his pass was 
a forgery, and who were determined to shoot him 
as a spy. Lincoln appealed to the men to spare 
him, and finding them deaf to his appeal, quickly 
placed his own body between the Indian and the 
guns of his enemies and thus shielded him from 
harm. 

With the end of the war, Lincoln returned to New 
Salem. He was, as he afterward said, "without 
means and out of business," and he "had nothing 
elsewhere to go to." An election was about to be 
held for members of the Legislature. He was en- 
couraged to become a candidate, for the sake of 

4i 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



the experience and advancement the place would 
bring him. In a democracy like ours, all the govern- 
ment, from the little town up to the great nation, is 
but a school for the instruction, improvement, and 
elevation of the citizens. The Legislature was like 
a university for Lincoln, and it was in this spirit 
that he sought a seat in it. 

His announcement of his candidacy was in the 
nature of the man. After frankly stating his posi- 
tion on the questions of the hour, he added, "I may 
be wrong in regard to any or all of them ; but, hold- 
ing it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes 
to be right than at all times to be wrong, so soon 
as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall 
be ready to renounce them." He declared his 
greatest ambition was to "be truly esteemed of my 
fellow-men, by rendering myself worthy of their 
esteem. How far," he added, "I shall succeed 
in gratifying this ambition is yet to be developed. 
I am young and unknown to many of you. I was 
born and have ever remained in the most humble 
walks ot life," and "if the good people in their 
wisdom shall see fit to keep me in the background, 
I have been too familiar with disappointments to 
be very much chagrined." 

His campaign was short and only one of his 
meetings has been called to memory. This was at 

42 



WRESTLING WITH DESTINY 

a place some distance from New Salem, where he 
waited until the close of an auction, when he got 
up and attempted to speak to the crowd. The peo- 
ple ignored him, for they seemed bent on enjoying 
a fight, and a general engagement followed. The 
candidate was forgotten. He quickly gained at- 
tention, however, by stepping down into the thick 
of the fray, seizing the ringleader and throwing him 
flat on the ground. Then he climbed upon the 
platform again, took off his old hat, and made a 
speech to an entirely respectful audience. 

He was a candidate before the voters of the entire 
county, and, having no acquaintance outside his 
own town, he was defeated; "the only time I have 
ever been beaten by the people," he was able to 
say nearly twenty years later. The vote cast in the 
precinct of New Salem, however, was most flatter- 
ing to him, for he received 277 ballots there among 
his neighbors in the village and the surrounding 
country, and only seven were thrown against him. 

He turned again to business, and with a partner 
he bought out a storekeeper. Not long afterward 
the Clary's Grove boys celebrated by smashing the 
windows of one of the other stores. The frightened 
proprietor took the hint, and offered to sell his stock 
cheap. Lincoln and his partner became the purchas- 
ers, and next they bought the only remaining store. 

43 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



By this combination, or trust, they gained a monop- 
oly of the trade of New Salem, and, after the fashion 
of high finance in a later day, they had done it all 
without a cent of cash. In each case they gave 
their notes, their promises to pay. Credit was the 
life of business on the frontier, for currency seldom 
was seen there, and personal notes passed from 
hand to hand almost as readily as treasury notes in 
our day. 

In his tan brogans, blue yarn socks, broad-brimmed, 
low-crowned straw hat without a band, and usually 
with only one suspender on his trousers, Lincoln 
did not look like a financial magnate or a merchant 
prince. He went to live at the tavern, a log structure 
of four rooms, where all the men lodgers slept to- 
gether, and where he delighted to meet the travelers, 
who tarried there on the stage route. When the 
place was crowded, he good-naturedly relieved 
the landlord by sleeping on a counter in his store. 

Storekeeping again failed to interest Lincoln. 
He continued to be a student of men and books. 
By a strange chance one book came to him, which 
probably fixed his course in life. The firm, in its 
readiness for a trade, bought from a stranger a barrel 
of odds and ends. While Lincoln was searching 
through its varied contents with his long arm, he 
fished out a copy of Blackstone's commentaries on 

44 






WRESTLING WITH DESTINY 

the common law. He was fascinated by the very 
sight of it, and day after day pored over its pages as he 
lay on the ground near the store, his feet resting 
high against the trunk of a tree, and his body wrig- 
gling around to keep in the shade. Meanwhile his 
partner was giving most of his attention to the rear 
of the store where the liquors were kept, for all 
country stores in those times sold liquor, though 
in this one there was no bar. 

In a few months the firm was dissolved and the 
store was sold, the purchaser, of course, indorsing 
and promising to pay the notes of Lincoln and his 
partner. After a little while, however, the new 
man fled, Lincoln's old partner died, and Lincoln 
alone stood responsible for the total indebtedness, 
an obligation so heavy that he always spoke of it 
as the "national debt." He had shown himself 
a poor business man, it is true, but he bravely faced 
his responsibility. He did not run away from it 
or try to beg ofF. 

"That debt was the greatest obstacle I have ever 
met in life," he said after many years. He owed 
$1100 and he had no way to get money except by 
hard labor at a small wage. He went to his creditors 
and told them if they would wait, he would give 
them all he could earn above the cost of living as 
fast as he could earn it, and thus work out the last 

45 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



dollar. It seemed to him that his whole life was 
mortgaged as he started out again, with only his 
strong right arm to help him lift the burden from 
his shoulders. One week he would split rails, 
another week toil in the fields, while from time to 
time he helped out in the store and did chores about 
the tavern. 

Through it all he did not cease to read. By 
walking to Springfield, a distance of twenty miles, 
he could borrow law books, and people long re- 
membered the picture of the big barefoot student, 
intently reading as he came and went along the 
dusty road. Another tale oft told, is of an old 
farmer finding his hired man lying in the field, with 
a book in his hand. 

"What are you reading?" he demanded. 

"I ain't reading; I'm studying," Lincoln answered, 
without losing his place on the page. 

"Studying what ?" 
Law, sir. 

"Great — God — Almighty," the farmer snorted, 
as he went off, shaking his wise old head. 

The eager student would not stop reading even 
for darkness. The cooper gave him the freedom 
of his shop, and there he would go of an evening, 
build a fire of shavings, and read by its light. As 
fast as he learned anything about the law, he made 

46 



WRESTLING WITH DESTINY 

his knowledge useful to his neighbors by drawing 
up their legal papers and by representing them in 
trials before the justice of the peace, all without 
charge. 

The upward turn came in the fortunes of Lincoln 
when friends obtained for him the postmastership 
of New Salem. It was not a highly paid office, 
nor was there much to do. When the mails came 
only once or twice a week, and sometimes in the 
winter only once a month, the postmaster was 
not kept very busy. At best, letters were not many, 
for the cheapest postage then was six cents for 
thirty miles or less; from that figure the rate rose 
as high as twenty-five cents on a letter going to 
a distant state. The people were so much given 
to doing business on credit that they would not 
pay cash even for their letters, and Lincoln had to 
carry numerous accounts in his head. 

While he was postmaster, the post-office of New 
Salem was in his hat. Meeting a man for whom 
he had a letter, he would take off his hat, withdraw 
the mail from it, and deliver it on the spot. As he 
went about his day's labor in the country, he would 
distribute the mail at the cabins on the way. 

Next, a chance to do surveying came to him, as 
it had come to Washington in his youth, and he 
fitted himself for the duty by hard study, so hard, 

47 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



indeed, that his friends were alarmed for his health. 
He gained repute for his accuracy in his new work, 
and this, with the natural fairness of his mind, won 
respect for the young surveyor's decisions regarding 
disputed boundary lines. One day, when he was 
surveying a piece of land over which there was J 
a long-standing quarrel, he put his stick into the 
ground and said, "Here is the corner." A man 
dug in the earth, and the by-standers were astonished 
to see him uncover the buried mark, which years 
before, the original surveyors of the national gov- 
ernment had placed at the exact spot indicated by 
Lincoln. 

For the first time in his life, he had a right to feel 
at ease. He was making a living and at the same 
time preparing himself for the future. Then once 
more, the shadow of misfortune fell across his path. 
A stranger, who had come into possession of one 
of his notes given in purchase of a store, sued him 
and seized his horse, saddle, bridle and all, and, 
worse still, his surveying instruments. It was a 
dark hour, filled with humiliation. A friend, how- 
ever, came to the rescue and saved him, by buy- 
ing in the property and handing it back to him. 

Lincoln never lacked a friend and never forgot 
one. A man in Nc" Salem who had trusted him 
for board was himself homeless in his old age. 

48 



WRESTLING WITH DESTINY 

Lincoln, with his gratitude still warm after many 
years, went to the distant part of the state, where 
his one-time benefactor was an inmate of a poor- 
house, took him from the place and found a good 
home for him. The friendships he made along the 
Sangamon, amid the struggles of his early man- 
hood, when he had neither fortune nor fame, stood 
the tests of time and change and lasted through 
life. They were the corner-stone of his success. 



49 



CHAPTER VII 



IN THE LEGISLATURE 



Elected a Representative in 1834. — Borrowing money with which 
to clothe himself and going to Vandalia, then the capita! of 
Illinois. — First meeting with Stephen A. Douglas. — Lincoln 
a member of Henry Clay's Whig party. — Favoring woman's 
suffrage. — An early joint debate. — Reelected to the Legis- 
lature in 1836, 1838, and in 1840. — Whig candidate for Speaker. 
— Leader of his party in the House. — Fighting for removal of 
the capital to Springfield. — Wild legislation. — Lincoln tak- 
ing his stand against slavery in the session of 1837, only one 
member in sympathy with him. 

Lincoln was no longer a stranger, when, for the 
second time, he announced himself a candidate 
for the Legislature. He now made a general can- 
vass, visiting as many of the voters as he could in 
their homes and in their fields, eating with them and 
laughing with them. 

Newspapers then were few and little read. Candi- 
dates, therefore, could not make themselves and their 
opinions known to the voters except by going among 
them in person. Lincoln showed himself a good 
campaigner, always ready for any situation. At one 
farm where he stopped, it was harvest time and the 
farmer was in no mood to talk politics. He bluntly 
told the young politician he judged a man by the 

50 



IN THE LEGISLATURE 



work he could do. Lincoln accepted the challenge 
good-naturedly, and, going down the field, he cut the 
grain with such ease that he led all the other work- 
ers. There were several voters among the harvest- 
ers, and when Lincoln shook their hands in parting, 
he was assured of their enthusiastic support. He 
was elected by a handsome vote. 

Borrowing the money with which to buy suitable 
clothing, he went to the capital at the opening of 
the session, and there entered upon the career for 
which he had long been fitting himself in the hard 
school of experience. He was now approaching his 
twenty-sixth birthday. He never had lived in a 
town, but always in log-houses in the woods. He 
never had lived where there was a church. He 
never had been inside a college, and had attended 
school hardly more than six months in all. He wel- 
comed the four dollars a day, which was allowed 
members of the Legislature, as by far the highest 
pay he ever had received. In fact, he had not aver- 
aged four dollars a week. 

His fellow-members were frontier solons, pioneer 
farmers and village lawyers, for there were no 
large towns in Illinois. Chicago was yet a mere 
trading post in a swamp. There were a few French- 
men, representing the surviving communities of 
the period when Illinois was under the lilies of the 

5 1 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Bourbons and the tricolored flag of revolutionary 
France; the rest of the members generally were 
men of southern origin like Lincoln. 

The state was founded and ruled by Southerners. 
There was only a small population of Northerners 
in the upper half, which was sparsely settled, and 
the Yankee was an object of popular prejudice, 
since he was regarded as a thrifty and meddlesome 
person, prone to insist upon order and his own 
strict standards of life. 

Lincoln remained in modest silence through 
his first term in the Legislature. He no doubt 
regarded himself merely as a pupil and was content 
to watch and listen. He cultivated his associates 
quietly and laid the foundation for the future. It 
was then and there that Stephen A. Douglas entered 
the story of .Lincoln's life. 

Douglas was a Yankee from Vermont, but he 
was acting with the Democratic party, which had 
long dominated Illinois. Although he had come 
to the state only a year before with thirty-seven 
cents in his pocket, he had picked up a living by 
teaching school and practising law, and was now at 
the capital to gain the appointment of prosecuting 
attorney in his district. 

While Douglas went with the majority, Lincoln 
made the harder choice and joined the minority. 

52 



IN THE LEGISLATURE 



Indeed, his party, afterward known as the Whig, 
was yet without even a name, with no victories to 
its credit and no honors to bestow. It was out of 
power in the nation and in the state, and had but 
few followers in New Salem. Lincoln, however, 
was naturally inclined to take the part of the weak 
in politics as well as in the everyday relations of 
life. Moreover, the new party was the party of 
Henry Clay, the model and idol of the young states- 
man of the Sangamon. 

In offering himself for reelection, Lincoln an- 
nounced he was in favor of "admitting all whites 
to the right of suffrage, who pay taxes or bear arms, 
by no means excluding females." As he had taken 
in boyhood a stand for temperance and against cru- 
elty to animals in advance of any general agitation 
of those questions, so now he came out for a measure 
of woman suffrage before there was a movement 
in favor of it anywhere. He had no thought of 
making an issue on this subject at that early day, 
but his declaration shows that he was thinking and 
not afraid to express his thoughts. 

His contest for a second term took place in a 
presidential year, and he entered into a number of 
exciting joint debates. In one of those debates, 
which was held in Springfield, he was stirred to make 
a spirited personal reply to an opposing speaker. 

53 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



This man was accused of having recently re- 
ceived a first-class federal office as a reward for 
changing his politics. He was also noted for 
having erected on his house the only lightning-rod 
in the town, and the first Lincoln had seen. 
Grouping these things together, Lincoln con- 
cluded a rousing rejoinder to the gentleman, by 
declaring he would rather die on the spot, than, 
like his opponent, "change my politics for an 
office worth three thousand dollars a year, and 
then feel compelled to erect a lightning-rod to 
protect a guilty conscience from an offended 
God." 

In the election that followed, nine members, were 
chosen from Sangamon County, and Lincoln led 
them all with the highest vote. He took a prominent 
part in the work of the session and was on the most 
important committee. The young state dreamed 
of the greatness awaiting it and was eager to hasten 
its coming by all manner of legislation for building 
roads and canals. 

Plans were adopted with a hurrah, which, if 
carried out, would have bankrupted the state for 
a generation. Lincoln plunged in with the rest, 
all of whom, with the recklessness of youth, threw 
caution to the winds. He made it his more special 
mission, however, to have the capital of the state 

54 



IN THE LEGISLATURE 



transferred to Springfield, in his own county, and 
he won the battle. 

Nevertheless, in all the transactions of that am- 
bitious session, only one incident survives in human 
interest. The nation had been disturbed by the 
rumblings of a moral protest against slavery. The 
agitation had begun in New England, where Faneuil 
Hall echoed with the appeal for freedom, and thence 
had spread abroad. 

Those who had taken it up were pitifully few in 
number and without political standing, but their 
feeble voice startled the country like a cry in the 
night. The South demanded that these assaults 
upon the peace of the Union should be suppressed, 
and the great body of the northern people were 
equally opposed to the movement. 

The meetings of the Abolitionists were broken 
up in various parts of the North by violence under 
the leadership of conservative men of property. 
A "broadcloth mob" dragged William Lloyd Gar- 
rison through the streets of Boston with a halter 
round his body, and the Mayor of that city, apologiz- 
ing to the Mayor of Baltimore, explained that when 
the police had ferreted out Garrison and his paper, 
The Liberator, they found his office to be "an obscure 
hole; his only visible auxiliary a negro boy; his 
supporters a few insignificant persons of all colors." 

55 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



In New Hampshire and in Connecticut an in- 
dignant population raided private schools which 
received negro pupils. A mass meeting in Cin- 
cinnati demanded that the publication of an anti- 
slavery paper in that city should be stopped, and its 
press was thrown into the Ohio River. The meet- 
ing place of the despised agitators in Philadelphia 
was burned, and, within the year, the editor of an 
Abolition paper in Alton, Illinois, was murdered. 
Congress and the legislatures of several states united 
in denouncing all discussion of the sensitive subject. 
The Legislature of Illinois joined in this denuncia- 
tion of the agitators by a resolution of both houses. 

In all the work of that session Lincoln had gone 
with the tide, but now he boldly took his stand apart. 
He wrote a protest and called upon the members 
to sign it. In this short and simple document, 
he admitted that the Abolition movement tended 
rather to increase than abate the evils of slavery, 
and that Congress had no power to abolish the 
system in the states; but he did urge his associates 
to place on record the declaration that "they believe 
that the institution of slavery is founded on both 
injustice and bad policy." 

This language, in the light of a later day, is mild 
to the degree of timidity, but when it was written, 
twenty-four years or almost a quarter of a century 

56 



IN THE LEGISLATURE 



before the Civil War, slavery never had been ar- 
raigned as an injustice in any party platform or 
by any party leader. In all the Legislature, Lincoln 
found only one man who would sign his moderate 
little paper. Dan Stone, a colleague from Sangamon, 
was willing to write his name upon it, and under 
it appears the signature, "A. Lincoln." 

It was the still, small voice of conscience. The 
first test had come, and Lincoln had bravely chosen 
his part. Although he served four terms in the 
Legislature and became the Whig candidate for 
Speaker and the chosen leader of his party on the 
floor of the House, aside from this one act, big with 
prophecy, history has rescued from oblivion nothing 
else in his service which foreshadowed his future. 



57 



CHAPTER VIII 

LOVER AND LAWYER 



The tragic story of Lincoln's first love. — His wooing of Ann Rut- 
ledge, the tavern-keeper's daughter at New Salem. — The con- 
flict between her conscience and her heart. — Lincoln plunged 
in gloom by her death, August, 1835. — Friends feared 
he would lose his mind. — A primitive man always in 
his sentiments. — His removal to Springfield in 1837 to begin 
the practice of law with John T. Stuart. — Too poor to pro- 
vide a bed for himself. — At once the center of a group of 
brilliant and ambitious young men, destined to win fame. — ■ 
Characteristic instance of his integrity. — Paying a claim made 
by the government. — Still working out his debt. 

The story of Lincoln as a lover forms a melan- 
choly chapter. No other experience of his early 
years gave him so much anguish, no other trial so 
tested and tempered his nature. If it did not bring 
him happiness, neither did it embitter him. On 
the contrary, he came forth from that period of 
soul-wracking doubt and despondency, a master 
of his passions, with a patience and a fortitude 
which fitted him to endure disappointment and 
suffering. 

If Lincoln had a sweetheart in his boyhood, 
a prying world has been unable to discover the 

58 



LOVER AND LAWYER 



tender episode. In his youth he was charmed by 
books rather than woman's looks, and no legends 
have come down of the gallantry of the Hoosier 
wood-chopper, sighing and wooing on the banks of 
Little Pigeon Creek. It is the accepted belief 
that he escaped a lover's pangs until he was a 
young man of twenty-five or twenty-six, when the 
auburn-haired daughter of the tavern-keeper of 
New Salem smote his heart. 

This was Ann Rutledge, a Kentucky girl by 
birth, a South Carolinian by descent. She was at- 
tractive both in mind and in person, refined in man- 
ner, and strong in character. If it was love at first 
sight, Lincoln's fortunes were so low that he did 
not venture openly to aspire to her hand in the begin- 
ning of their acquaintance, when sometimes he was 
only a penniless helper about her father's tavern. 

Moreover, she was engaged to another. It was 
not until after this man had disappeared from the 
knowledge of the village and Lincoln had risen to 
the surveyorship and a seat in the Legislature, that 
he told her of his love. It is a tradition that he first 
opened his heart to her at a "quilting," to which 
he escorted her, and as a proof that her own heart 
responded, there was preserved for years the very 
quilt over which her agitated fingers flew — and the 
uneven stitches told the story. 

59 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



The girl, however, felt bound in loyalty to the 
absent one. She asked Lincoln to wait until she 
could gain her release from that obligation. Her 
letter was sped on the way to its distant destination, 
and they could only watch for the slow coming of 
the answer. They waited through the months, 
and no reply came. At last she promised herself 
to Lincoln, who was compelled to postpone their 
marriage indefinitely, because he could not yet 
support a wife. 

In the midst of almost the first happiness which 
he had ever known, his sweetheart fell sick. Her 
faithful nature had been unable to free itself from 
the shadow of the man who had gone away with 
her pledge to remain true till he came again. The 
villagers said her heart was breaking for him. 
More likely, however, it was her conscience rather 
than her heart that was troubled. 

Her sickness ran into a fever, and she was for- 
bidden to receive callers. She disclosed her love 
for Lincoln by begging earnestly and constantly 
to be permitted to see him. She could not live, and 
her family let her have her only wish. The last 
song she sang was for him. After a few days the 
end came and Lincoln was borne down with woe. 

The love of Ann Rutledge had been like a beautiful 
flower in the hard and thorny pathway of his lonely 

60 



LOVER AND LAWYER 



life. To see this flower fade and die ere it bloomed, 
filled him with the darkest despair. In his senti- 
ments and emotions, Lincoln remained always a 
primitive man, a simple backwoodsman. No eleva- 
tion of mind or station seemed to affect these elements 
of his nature. His heart was unchanged to the end. 
He never rose superior to its aches and appeals; 
he could always cry. 

Malaria attacked the settlers in the dank forests 
and the tillers of the newly turned soil of the virgin 
land of the West. Lincoln did not escape the 
disease and this, together with his intellectual isola- 
tion and his naturally sensitive disposition, made 
him a man of dark moods. These he could 
sometimes disguise or momentarily beguile with 
jests and laughter, but, in his sluggish physical 
condition, he seemed powerless to conquer them 
and throw them off. 

He grieved for the dead girl until his friends 
feared he was losing his mind. Returning to 
the Legislature he summoned the spirit for carry- 
ing on his work there, but he sadly confessed to 
a fellow-member, "Although I seem to others to en- 
joy life rapturously, yet when alone I am so over- 
come by mental depression, I never dare to carry 
a pocket-knife." 

In this somber frame of mind, Lincoln bade 

61 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



good-by to New Salem. It, too, was dying. The 
post-office had "winked out," as its quaint post- 
master expressed it, and the trade of the place 
had been diverted to a near-by town. When, with 
everything he owned in his saddle-bags, he mounted 
a borrowed horse and rode away to be a lawyer in 
Springfield, he was even poorer than when he first 
walked into New Salem, for now he was deep in debt. 

He was in his twenty-ninth year, and the lawyer, 
from whom he had been borrowing law books, 
offered to take him into his office. Although 
Springfield was a little town of between one and 
two thousand population, it had been made the new 
capital of the state, largely through Lincoln's efforts 
in the Legislature. The townspeople naturally felt 
grateful toward him, and the field was a promising 
one. 

Arrived at Springfield, he ordered a bedstead of 
the cabinet-maker and then went to a general store 
to see how much the bedding would cost. The 
price was seventeen dollars. He sighed and his 
face took on an added shade of gloom. 

"I have not the money to pay," he confessed, 
"but if you will credit me until Christmas, and my 
experience here as a lawyer is a success, I will pay 
you then. If I fail in that, I will probably never 
pay you at all." 

62 



LOVER AND LAWYER 



While the storekeeper had no personal acquaint- 
ance with him, he had heard him speak and he 
admired him. His sympathy was aroused by his 
air of hopeless poverty and he told him, if he 
would accept it, he would share his bed with him. 

"Where is your room?" Lincoln inquired. 

"Upstairs," the proprietor answered. 

The forlorn-looking newcomer took his saddle- 
bags on his arm and went up the stairway. Coming 
down in a few minutes, his face was in a broad smile, 
as he said, "Well, I'm moved." 

There in the room above the store of his generous 
host, he lodged, while struggling to get a foothold 
in his new profession. For years his debts hung 
over him like a black cloud. He felt in honor bound 
to share every hard-earned dollar with his creditors. 
Long after the stores for which he contracted the 
debt had been razed to the ground and New Salem 
itself had utterly vanished from the earth, he was 
still paying for them out of his scanty earnings at 
the bar. 

Friends who knew through what stress he had 
passed and still was passing, gained a glimpse of the 
integrity of the man one day when an agent of the 
Post-office Department appeared in Springfield. 
This official came to collect a balance of seventeen 
dollars due the government from Lincoln at the 

63 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



time he had retired from the postmastership of 
New Salem. Lincoln stepped over to an old box 
in his office and drew forth a sock containing the 
exact amount in silver and copper coins. There it 
had reposed, untouched by him, through every 
temptation of years of pinching need, while he 
waited for the government to give him a chance 
to settle. Those who saw the proceeding were 
amazed, but he simply remarked that he had made 
it his practice not to spend money belonging to 
others. 

Had Lincoln been able to choose for himself, 
he could not have found more fortunate head- 
quarters in Springfield than the store over which 
he slept. In front of the big wood fire there, the 
rising young men of the town were in the habit of 
gathering in the evening, and, with his humor and 
his earnestness, he soon became the center of the 
company, which included Stephen A. Douglas, who 
was admitted to practice before the State Supreme 
Court the same day that Lincoln's name was en- 
rolled ; O. H. Browning, afterward a member of 
a President's Cabinet; E. D. Baker, later a 
Senator from Oregon, and others destined to fame. 

It was an ambitious group, and Baker is said to 
have burst into tears while reading the Constitution 
of the United States and finding that he, a native 

64 



LOVER AND LAWYER 



of England, could never be President. The questions 
of the hour were warmly debated, and every cause 
found a champion. Once, when the arguments 
became unusually heated, Douglas sprang up and 
challenged his opponents to a public debate, which 
came off, four on a side, and raged for more than a 
week. Lincoln was the last speaker, and the world 
hardly would recognize the Lincoln it knows in the 
bombast which he delivered on that occasion. 
"Many free countries have lost their liberties, and 
ours may lose hers," he declared, "but if she shall, 
let it be my proudest plume, not that I was the 
last to desert, but that I never deserted her." 

It was in a time when the mock heroic was the 
favorite tone of our public speaking. Lincoln, like 
the rest in that period, had nothing to talk about, 
and he split the ear with wordy declamation. In 
a day of ordinary things he could be as ordinary 
as any one. Only when his heart was touched by 
a lofty cause was he lifted above the commonplace. 

When the roaring log-cabin and hard-cider cam- 
paign of 1840 spread over the country, a period of 
all shouting and no thinking, he was in the thick 
of the idle fray. The bitter personal controversies 
of that year, in which he was involved, sufficed him 
for the rest of his days. It was a part of his edu- 
cation. Thenceforth, aside from an absurd duel 

65 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



two years afterward, he practised a self-control and 
a courtesy which held him aloof from all personal 
wrangling. He fought measures and not men, and 
relied upon the arguments of the mind rather than 
those of the fists. 

The Washingtonian temperance movement which 
swept over the land reawakened Lincoln's early 
interest in the subject. The moral and humane 
aspects of the crusade stirred him and inspired him 
to deliver a powerful address, in which he foretold 
the time "when there shall be neither a slave nor 
a drunkard on the earth." 

If there was a moral principle beneath any question 
presented to him, his nature was certain to respond 
to it. This was shown again when Knownothingism 
raised its head, and, by secret methods, attempted 
to place foreign-born residents under the ban and 
to discriminate against men on account of their re- 
ligious belief. As the movement gained in strength, 
timid politicians were thrown into a panic. Lincoln, 
on the other hand, struck at the thing boldly, and 
at the very outset of the agitation he offered a resolu- 
tion in convention declaring that the right of con- 
science "belongs no less to the Catholic than to the 
Protestant." No form of intolerance or proscription 
had a place in the make-up of the man. 



66 



CHAPTER IX 

MARRIAGE AND POLITICS 



Lincoln's lack of the social graces. — His strange courtship of 
Mary Todd. — Their sharp differences in temperament and 
breeding. — His long wrestle with doubt. — A period of almost 
suicidal despair. — Miss Todd innocently involved him in an 
absurd duel with General Shields, September, 1842, which 
became the means of reuniting them. — Their abrupt marriage, 
November 4, 1842. — The ambitious bride's faith in her 
husband's future. — Lincoln elected to Congress in 1846. 

The graces of a lady's man were denied Lincoln. 
"Mr. Lincoln was deficient in those little links 
which make up the chain of a woman's happiness 
— at least it was so in my case." This is the verdict, 
and doubtless a fair verdict, of one who rejected him 
as a suitor. She rightfully complained that when 
they were riding and came to a stream, he never 
thought of seeing that her horse got safely over the 
ford, but galloped on, trusting her to look out for 
herself. 

He never had any parlor small talk. He retained 
through life an indifference to social formalities. 
He seemed not to defy them, but never to understand 
them. In Springfield he could not wholly avoid 

67 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



the society of the place, because of the rank which 
he took at the bar and in politics. From the first 
his associations were with persons who pretended to 
some breeding in the young and ambitious capital, 
where, as he wrote, there was " a good deal of flourish- 
ing about in carriages." When he felt called upon 
to attend a ball, he danced little, and was rather 
given to annoying the women by diverting their 
partners to a corner of the room, where he generally 
held forth to a masculine group. 

In the same year he went to Springfield, Mary 
Todd came from Kentucky to visit her eldest sister, 
who had married into a notable family of Illinois. 
After a stay of a few months, she returned to her 
native state, but came again two years later to make 
her sister's home her own, in preference to her father's 
house, over which a step-mother presided. She was 
a spirited, impulsive, outspoken, pretty little woman 
of twenty-one, used to refined society and as well 
educated as a woman could be in those days. 

Her sister's spacious dwelling was the social center 
of the town, and Miss Todd never was without 
attentions and admirers. In an open competition 
among them, Lincoln, poor and awkward, would 
have been easily distanced, for in her train were 
graceful courtiers like Stephen A. Douglas. Not- 
withstanding her pride of family, for she was de- 

63 



MARRIAGE AND POLITICS 



scended from governors and generals, her interest 
was enlisted in the character of the former wood- 
chopper, and the bright promise of future distinction 
which he wore excited her ambition. 

Her family did not look kindly upon her prefer- 
ence for him, and the halting and doubting suitor 
himself would have discouraged a less resolute 
woman. She and Lincoln were not only opposites in 
breeding but in temperament as well, and the course 
of their love never ran smoothly. Whether in his 
conflicting emotions and morbid presentiments of 
unhappiness he failed her on the appointed wedding 
day, history is not certain. There is no question, 
however, that he brought his relations with her to 
an abrupt end, and plunged into a period of des- 
perate melancholy. 

Friends watched him and cared for him with 
anxious solicitude. He wrote to his partner, then 
in Congress, that he was the most miserable man 
living, and that if his misery were distributed among 
the human family, there would not be one cheerful 
face on earth. He could not tell if he would ever 
recover; "I awfully forebode I shall not." In his 
groping for help, he wrote a noted Cincinnati doctor, 
describing his condition, his early love for Ann Rut- 
ledge and his more recent experience, and asking 
him to prescribe. 

69 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



After months of this unhappy mood a good friend, 
who was going to Kentucky to see his betrothed, 
took Lincoln with him. There the heart-sick 
patient gained some relief amid new scenes and 
faces, and most of all in striving to cure his friend, 
who was strangely stricken with the same torment- 
ing doubts in his own love affair. When he had 
seen this case end in a happy marriage and he had 
returned to Illinois, he wrote to the bridegroom 
with glowing satisfaction: "I always was super- 
stitious. I believe God made me one of the instru- 
ments of bringing you and Fanny together, which 
union I have no doubt He had foreordained. What- 
ever He designs, He will do for me yet." 

Ever present in his mind was the sad plight in 
which he had placed Miss Todd. It was a wound 
in his honor. He reproached himself for even 
wishing to be happy when he thought of her whom 
he had made unhappy. "That," he wrote, "still 
kills my soul." When he heard, after a year, that 
she had taken a short journey and had said she 
enjoyed it, he exclaimed, "God be praised for that." 

Finally, this strange love story of Lincoln and 
Mary Todd was threatened with the blood stain 
of a tragedy, which, fortunately, turned out to be 
a roaring farce. For political purposes he wrote 
a letter to the Springfield paper, pretending to come 

70 



MARRIAGE AND POLITICS 



from a widow, in which he ridiculed the auditor 
of Illinois, James Shields, destined to be a Senator 
of the United States and a general in the Union 
army. The letter was followed, the next week, 
by an imitation over the same signature, but with 
which Lincoln had nothing to do. 

This second communication made all kinds of 
fun of Shields, who was stung to demand the name 
of the writer. The editor of the paper came to 
Lincoln and told him that the offending article had 
been written in a spirit of pure mischief by Miss 
Todd and another young woman, afterward the 
wife of Lyman Trumbull, a distinguished Senator 
from Illinois in the period of the Civil War. To 
protect the true authors, Lincoln promptly told the 
editor to give his name to Shields, and a most 
ridiculous duel was the result. 

He was heartily ashamed of this encounter be- 
fore he went into it and never ceased to be ashamed 
of it. Being the challenged man, he chose as weapons 
the largest cavalry broadswords, and the party went 
forth to the field of honor, where Lincoln grimly 
ran his ringer along the edge of his ugly duelling 
instrument, and, reaching out his long arm, cut 
off a twig from a tree, far above his head. Brought 
face to face, the principals quickly came to a peace- 
able understanding, but the spirit of fight was caught 

7i 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



up by the seconds, and challenges flew back and 
forth for several days, all as bloodless in the out- 
come as the Lincoln-Shields duel. 

In the next scene, Cupid entered the fray and 
Lincoln surrendered to his fate and Mary Todd. 
His impulses were as weak and wayward as ever, 
but his sense of duty, his ideal of honor, were asserting 
themselves over his doubts and fears. He must, 
however, hasten to consult once more the friend who 
had borne him away to Kentucky and who had 
now been married eight months. " I want to ask 
you a close question," he wrote to him. "Are 
you, in feeling as well as in judgment, glad you 
are married ?" 

Whatever the answer may have been to this most 
unusual inquiry, Lincoln and Mary Todd called 
the latter's sister to where they were sitting one 
Friday morning, and told her they had decided to 
be married in the evening. No time was allowed 
for the arrangement of a feast or for the play of 
gossip. The bride must even borrow a wedding 
gown from a sister who had lately married. 

Mrs. Lincoln loyally accepted and shared the 
simple lot of her struggling husband. They went 
to live at a tavern at "four dollars a week," and it 
was enough for the aspiring wife to dream of fortune 
and fame, and to know, as she said, "that his heart 

72 



MARRIAGE AND POLITICS 



is as large as his arms are long." It is a pleasant 
legend that the bride boasted she would make her 
ungainly groom the President of the United States. 

He was steadily advancing at the bar and was 
already looked upon as a leader in politics. After 
retiring from the Legislature, he refused to consider 
the empty honor of the Whig nomination for Gov- 
ernor, Illinois being strongly Democratic. His one 
political ambition was to sit in Congress. He was 
perfectly frank about it. "If you should hear any 
one say that Lincoln don't want to go to Congress," 
he wrote, "I wish you, as a personal friend of mine, 
would tell him you have reason to believe he is 
mistaken. The truth is, I would like to go very 
much." 

His brilliant friend, E. D. Baker, however, got 
ahead of him, and Lincoln cheerfully awaited his 
turn to receive Congressional honors. He only 
mildly complained that the influence of the churches 
should have been exerted as one of the means of 
preventing his nomination, an opposition which 
was raised, he said, "because I belonged to no 
church and was suspected of being a deist." 

Another issue of that canvass only amused him. 
"I, a strange, friendless, uneducated, penniless boy," 
he said in explaining his defeat in a letter to a man 
who had known him in New Salem, "have been 

73 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



put down here as the candidate of pride, wealth, 
and aristocratic family connections." This referred, 
of course, to the family into which he had married, 
but to a group of friends Lincoln laughingly 
protested, "I do not remember of but one of my 
relatives who ever came to see me, and while he was 
in town he was accused of stealing a jews-harp." 

When, at last, his time came, Lincoln put forth 
every effort to succeed Baker in Congress. He 
wrote to several active men in each precinct and 
saw that the local paper did not neglect him. He 
was a shrewd and close campaigner, missing no 
points in the fight and keeping a sharp eye on all 
the details of the contest. 

In the election he carried his own county by the 
largest majority ever given to a Whig candidate 
up to that time, and won the district by a liberal 
margin. Then, as the first flush of victory passed 
away, he sadly admitted, "It has not pleased me 
as much as I expected." 



74 



CHAPTER X 



IN CONGRESS 



Lincoln, taking his seat, December, 1847, entered a Congress 
notable for distinguished members. — As the only Whig from 
Illinois, he was singled out and welcomed by the leaders. — 
His delight in the great library at the Capitol. — President 
Polk's Mexican War policy challenged by the new member, 
although his course cost him his popularity at home. — The 
House roaring with laughter over his stump speech on the floor 
in the campaign of 1848. — Speaking in Massachusetts in the 
summer of that year. — Affected by the Free-soil movement in 
that state. — His unsuccessful effort in 1849 to a bolish slavery 
and the slave trade in the District of Columbia. — Seeking an 
appointment under President Taylor in 1849 an< ^ n ' s fortunate 
failure. 

Lincoln was thirty-eight when he took his seat 
in Congress and entered upon another grade in the 
university of life. 

The time was well chosen for him. The eloquence 
of Webster still contended with the philosophy 
of Calhoun for the mastery of a Senate, in which 
sat many other noted men, among them, Benton 
and Cass, Tom Corwin, Sam Houston in his Navajo 
blanket, Jefferson Davis and Simon Cameron, 
Hannibal Hamlin, and John A. Dix. Stephen A. 

75 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Douglas received his promotion to the upper cham- 
ber the day Lincoln entered the lower. 

Robert C. Winthrop was the Speaker of the House, 
and under him sat Alexander H. Stephens, Robert 
Toombs, Collamer of Vermont, and Andrew Johnson. 
Horace Greeley was added to the membership by 
a special election. Above all, the name of John 
Quincy Adams still illuminated the roster of the 
House, and it was while Lincoln was a member 
that the "old man eloquent" fell, mortally stricken 
at his post of duty in the hall of representatives, worn 
out by a life of service to the republic. 

The new Congressman from Illinois was totally 
unknown to his fellow-members. As the only Whig 
from his state, however, he received a special wel- 
come from his party associates, and this, with his 
natural gift for winning men, soon marked him 
out from the crowd. He attracted the favor of 
Daniel Webster and was a guest at several of the 
great expounder's Saturday breakfasts. He needed 
only to tell his first story in the lounging room at 
the Capitol to gain attention there, and within a 
few weeks he was the recognized champion of the 
story-tellers of Congress. 

The Congressional Library and the Library of 
the Supreme Court, with their great stores of books, 
were like a gold mine in his eyes. More than once 

76 



IN CONGRESS 



the attendants were amused to see him tie up a lot 
of books in his bandanna handkerchief, stick his 
cane through the knot, and go forth to his boarding 
house with the bundle over his shoulder, just as in 
other days he had carried his wardrobe while tramp- 
ing from job to job. 

James K. Polk was President and the Mexican 
War in progress. Many people believed it was 
an unjust war and brought on for the purpose of 
gaining more territory for slavery and adding more 
slave states to the Union. The President insisted 
that the war was forced upon the United States 
by Mexico, that she had invaded our territory and 
shed the blood of our citizens on our soil. His 
opponents denied this. They contended that the 
President had sent American soldiers beyond the 
established boundaries of the country, and that the 
Mexican troops had only tried to repel them from 
what Mexico rightfully regarded as her own soil. 

Without waiting to follow the lead of older mem- 
bers, Lincoln drew up and presented a series of 
resolutions before his first month in Congress was 
at an end. These are known to history as the 
"spot resolutions," in which the question is sharply 
pressed upon President Polk as to whether the 
spot to which he had sent American soldiers and 
where the first blood of the war was shed was 

77 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



within the established boundaries of the United 
States. 

After a few weeks he addressed the House in 
support of his resolutions, delivering a sober argu- 
ment in behalf of them and giving a searching 
review of the case. He called upon the President 
to answer the questions candidly, reminding him 
that he sat where Washington sat and ought to 
answer as Washington would answer. If the ques- 
tions should be evaded, the country must accept the 
evasion as a confession that the war was wrong and 
that the President hoped to conceal the wrong be- 
neath military glory — "that attractive rainbow that 
rises in showers of blood, that serpent's eye that 
charms to destroy," and he gave it as his opinion that 
Polk was "a bewildered, confounded, and miserably 
perplexed man." 

This speech, made when the country was ringing 
with cheers for the victory of American arms, brought 
upon Lincoln's head the censure of many of his 
friends and constituents, to one of whom, a clergy- 
man, he wrote, asking if the precept "whatsoever ye 
would that men should do to you, do ye even so 
to them" is "obsolete, of no force, of no application." 
Much as he opposed the sending of an army into 
Mexico, all the appropriations for supporting the 
soldiers in the field received his vote, and to capture 

78 



IN CONGRESS 



for his party the military hero of the hour, he aided 
in forming a Taylor Club in Congress. 

He attended the National Convention at Phila- 
delphia which nominated General Taylor for Presi- 
dent. To the same end, he delivered on the floor, 
in the midst of the campaign, a rousing stump speech, 
which set the House in an uproar of laughter and 
applause. A press correspondent pictured him as 
he worked his way down the aisle, talking and ges- 
ticulating, until he reached the clerk's desk, only to 
retreat to his starting point and then march down 
again. 

As the campaign advanced, there was a call for 
him from Massachusetts, where the Whigs were 
troubled by the rise of the Free Soil party, standing 
for the policy of keeping the soil of all the territories 
of the United States free from slavery. It was 
a novel experience for him to speak to audiences 
in the staid and settled East, and to see and hear 
this "capital specimen of a Sucker Whig," as one 
of the Massachusetts papers described him, was 
a novelty to the New Englanders. 

A lively demand for his services sprang up in the 
Old Bay State, and his stay there was crowded with 
engagements. Instead of the orator in a swallow- 
tail, to which the people were used, they saw a 
prairie giant in a black alpaca coat, who, in begin- 

79 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



ning, would roll up his sleeves, then roll back his 
cufFs, next loosen his tie, and finally pull it off in the 
melting heat of the weather and of his fervid oratory. 

In Boston he spoke with William H. Seward of 
New York, and at the hotel, after the meeting, he 
remarked: "Governor Seward, I have been think- 
ing about what you said in your speech. I reckon 
you are right. We have got to deal with this slavery 
question and got to give much more attention to it 
hereafter." 

For the first time he found himself in a community 
where there was an active, organized sentiment on 
that question and he felt the influence of his surround- 
ings. His party had nominated Taylor, a southern 
slaveholder, and was ignoring all the problems con- 
nected with slavery. Lincoln, however, face to face 
with the Free Soilers in Massachusetts, plainly saw 
that the politicians could not dodge the subject 
much longer and that the great conflict must come. 

He was not a candidate for reelection to Congress, 
because it was the custom in his district to give 
a member only one term, and besides his opposition 
to the Mexican War had made it impossible for 
him to win at the polls. Returning to Washington 
the following winter, he distinguished the closing 
year of his service by introducing a well-thought- 
out measure against slavery. 

80 



IN CONGRESS 



There was a slave mart in sight of the Capitol, 
"a sort of negro livery stable," Lincoln said, "where 
droves of negroes were collected and temporarily 
kept, and finally taken to southern markets, precisely 
like droves of horses." To remove this spectacle, 
he offered a bill abolishing the slave trade in the 
District of Columbia and for the gradual abolition 
of slavery there, with compensation for the slave- 
holders. 

For this bill he labored earnestly and at one time 
succeeded in bringing together the opponents of 
slavery and the then Mayor of Washington in sup- 
port of it. Afterward, however, southern sentiment 
was aroused against it, the Mayor withdrew his 
indorsement, and Lincoln's bill was laid on the table, 
where it slumbered until it was awakened, a dozen 
years later, by the clash of arms in the Civil War. 

As the inauguration of President Taylor drew 
near, the only Whig representative from Illinois 
had a busy time. He was on the committee in 
charge of the inaugural ball, at which he lost his hat 
and was obliged to walk home bareheaded. The 
office-seekers under the new administration pressed 
hard for his influence. He acted in this matter 
with dignity and fairness. 

In the end, he sought for himself the appoint- 
ment as Commissioner of the General Land Office. 
g 81 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Fortunately, he was too late; the place had been 
promised to another and he was spared a political 
burial in a Washington bureau. He was deeply 
disappointed for a time, and was tempted to console 
himself with a lesser office out in the territory of 
Oregon, but Mrs. Lincoln's objections overruled him. 
He returned to his dingy little law office in Spring- 
field with reluctance, gave up politics, and went to 
work at his profession. "I have always been a 
fatalist," he said afterward. "What is to be, will 
be, or rather, I have found all my life, as Hamlet 
says, 

"'There's a divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough hew them how we will.' " 



82 



CHAPTER XI 

LIFE ON THE CIRCUIT 



Failing as an office seeker, Lincoln returned to his dingy little 
law office in Springfield in 1849. — Declined a lucrative city 
practice in Chicago. — His indifference to money making. — 
Censured for his small charges. — His yearly income. — His 
largest fee. — Discouraging unnecessary lawsuits and re- 
jecting cases that were wrong. — Championing the cause of 
the poor without pay. — A pen picture of the man as he rode 
the country circuit. — Some of his noted cases in the higher 
courts. — His bitter rebuff at the hands of Edwin M. Stanton, 
in an important case at Cincinnati in 1857. 

Fortune never served Lincoln better than when, 
at the end of his two years in Congress, she led his 
steps up the old stairway to the bare and dingy law 
office of Lincoln and Herndon in the back room of a 
two-story brick building on the Square in Springfield. 

It was not a spacious office, nor even a clean one, 
for in a neglected corner of it, where packages of 
government seeds were tossed, the seeds found 
enough earth in which to take root and sprout. Here, 
however, Lincoln was his own master, free to think 
his own thoughts and to speak them. He would 
have been far more cramped in the lofty and exten- 
sive quarters of the Commissioner of the General 

83 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Land Office at Washington than within these narrow 
and dusty walls. 

Amid admiring friends and familiar surroundings, 
he soon forgot his desires and disappointments as 
an office-seeker, for his ambition really did not lie 
in that direction. A flattering offer of a partner- 
ship with a prosperous Chicago lawyer did not 
tempt him in the least, and he declined it on the 
ground that, having a tendency to consumption, 
confinement in a city office might kill him. 

In prompting him to this decision, fortune again 
favored him. A Chicago practice might not have 
proved fatal to his health, but the big clients and 
the big fees of a city well might have interfered with 
his mental and moral growth. As it was, he lived 
and died without a trace of avarice. No lawyer of 
his ability ever cared less for money. To him 
wealth was, as he once said, "simply a superfluity 
of things we don't need." 

No man in his position could have fewer needs. 
His tastes remained to the end as simple as they 
were in the beginning. While other members of 
the bar grew rich by accumulating land, he would 
not turn his hand over to make a dollar in specu- 
lation and was content to stay a poor man. Most 
of the able lawyers around him made more money 
in representing absent landlords and money lenders 



LIFE ON THE CIRCUIT 



than they earned at the bar. Not liking that line 
of work, however, he refused to trouble himself 
with it, even in his early days when clients were 
few. Once in declining such a chance, he wrote, 
recommending another man, "whom," as he said, 
"the Lord made on purpose for just that kind of 
business." 

He was a poor money maker in his profession 
itself. Daniel Webster, who sent him a case, was 
amazed at the smallness of his bill, and his fellow- 
lawyers generally looked upon his charges as scan- 
dalously low. This, indeed, seemed to be his only 
fault in their eyes. In one instance, where another 
attorney had collected two hundred and fifty dollars 
for their joint services in a case, he refused to accept 
his share until the fee had been reduced to what 
he considered a fair sum and the overcharge had been 
returned to the client. When David Davis, the 
presiding judge of the circuit, who himself became 
a millionaire landowner, heard of this, he indignantly 
exclaimed, "Lincoln, your picayune charges will 
impoverish the bar." 

Lincoln's practice, at best, probably brought him 
an income of from two to three thousand dollars 
a year. The largest fee he ever charged was in an 
important tax case for the Illinois Central Railway 
Company. After he had won the suit, he pre- 

85 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



sented, in person, his bill for two thousand dollars, 
and an official of the corporation regarded it as so 
extortionate that he refused to pay it. It was a new 
experience for Lincoln to have any question raised 
as to the fairness of his charges. When he con- 
ferred with his friends at the bar, however, they 
agreed that his bill was ridiculously small. At their 
urgent suggestion he sued for five thousand dollars 
and the court compelled the company to pay it. 

It was a common thing for Lincoln to discour- 
age unnecessary lawsuits, and consequently he was 
continually sacrificing opportunities to make money. 
One man who asked him to bring suit for two 
dollars and a half against a debtor who had not 
a cent with which to pay, would not be put off in 
his passion for revenge. His counsel, therefore, 
gravely demanded ten dollars as a retainer. Half 
of this he gave to the poor defendant, who thereupon 
confessed judgment and paid the two dollars and 
a half. Thus the suit was ended to the entire sat- 
isfaction of the wrothy creditor. 

Lincoln was equally ready to take up a just case 
without hope of pay as he was to refuse an unjust 
one at the loss of a good fee. He dragged into court 
a pension agent who insisted on keeping for himself 
half of a four-hundred-dollar claim, which he had 
collected from the government for the aged widow 

86 



LIFE ON THE CIRCUIT 



of a soldier of the Revolution. There, in his own 
expressive phrase, he "skinned" him, moved the 
jury to tears by his stirring appeal for justice to the 
old woman, and won the verdict, all without charge 
for his services. 

Naturally he shrank from confinement in a 
Chicago law office, for the free and roving life of 
the country circuit was his joy. He never seemed 
to tire of this gypsy existence. In the new West, 
a lawyer could not make a living from his practice 
in one county alone. A circuit included a group 
of counties, and the circuit judge went from county 
to county holding court, while the members of the 
bar followed him on his rounds. 

Lincoln's circuit embraced more than a dozen 
counties and was one hundred and fifty miles broad. 
At first there were no roads worthy of the name, and 
no bridges at all. The judge, riding horseback, 
led a cavalcade of mounted attorneys, while others, 
who could not afford a mount, trudged afoot. After 
Lincoln's return from Congress he journeyed in a 
rattletrap buggy, which a blacksmith had rudely 
put together. 

He delighted in roaming the prairies and was 
ready for every adventure. Whenever and wher- 
ever the party stopped at a farm-house for dinner, 
he was the favorite, with his stories and jokes. With 

87 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



his long legs and his unfailing helpfulness, he would 
get out, at an uncertain ford, take off his boots, 
roll up his trousers, and tread the stream to test its 
depth for the benefit of the rest of the company. 

Even the dumb brute in distress did not appeal 
to him in vain. A squealing pig, "mired down" 
in a bog, drew him to its rescue, and two little birds, 
blown by the wind from their nest in a grove through 
which he was passing, called him back with their 
plaintive chirping. "I couldn't have slept," he 
protested to his smiling companions when he had 
overtaken them, " if I had not restored them to their 
mother." 

At once the best-known and the best-liked man on 
the circuit, an enthusiastic welcome awaited him on 
his arrival at a county seat. Bench and bar, sur- 
rounded by scores and hundreds of delighted citizens, 
gave him a hearty greeting as he alighted before 
the tavern and grasped with genuine pleasure their 
outstretched hands, exclaiming in friendly recogni- 
tion of each, "Hello, Smith," "Hello, Jones," "Ain't 
you glad I've come ?" 

On his head he wore either a twenty-five-cent, low- 
crowned palm hat or a high, shaggy beaver of the 
William Henry Harrison period. Often his clothes 
were of wrinkled, dusty, rusty, shiny bombazine, while 
sometimes, for lack of buttons, his suspenders were 



LIFE ON THE CIRCUIT 



fastened to his trousers by a plug or a stick, which 
he had whittled for the purpose. In his hand he 
carried a queer old carpet-sack, and under his arm 
a worn and faded green cotton umbrella, tied around 
the middle with a coarse cord. Inside of it "A. 
Lincoln" was inscribed in letters of big white thread, 
and from its handle the knob had been missing as 
long as any one could remember. 

Careless as he was in his dress, his face was always 
carefully shaven and his person scrupulously clean. 
Free as he was in meeting people, and easy as the 
poorest and plainest men were in his presence, he in- 
vited no cheap familiarity. No one thought of slap- 
ping him on the back or of addressing him as "Abe" ; 
he was "Mr. Lincoln" among acquaintances and 
simply "Lincoln" among even the oldest and closest 
friends. 

Tavern keepers cordially hailed his coming, 
because his presence under their roof made their 
hostelry the center of the community for the time 
being, while he never was known to complain of 
the food or service. 

If he appeared in the lounging room of the inn 
at night and tilted back in a chair, the news spread 
abroad and the place quickly filled to the doors 
and windows with a crowd eager to follow the play 
of his humor, while Judge Davis and his select 

89 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



coterie of the more reserved members of the bar 
impatiently waited for him to come to the judge's 
room upstairs and enliven their discussions. 

For some time after he came back from Washing- 
ton he was in a studious mood. With his admission 
to the bar and his opportunity to mingle with its 
interesting members, he ceased to care for books. 
He was reading men and studying life. When, 
however, with his keen eye and candid mind, he 
brought himself into comparison with the carefully 
trained lawyers whom he met at the capital of the 
nation, he felt the glaring defects in his own edu- 
cation. He returned home with the determination 
to read. 

He was forty, but not too old to learn. He took 
up Euclid as his first study, and he persevered until 
he had mastered the first six books of that classic 
authority. Night after night on the circuit, long 
after the judge and his two or three other fellow- 
lodgers, whose room he shared, were snoring in their 
sleep, Lincoln lay and read, with a candle on the 
chair at the head of his bed, and his feet, as usual, 
hanging over the footboard. Again he was as likely 
to disappear from the tavern and steal ofF alone to 
enjoy himself like a boy at some simple magic-lan- 
tern show in the village, or at a performance 
of an obscure theatrical troupe. 

90 



LIFE ON THE CIRCUIT 



In court he himself was the star actor. On that 
stage the comedies and tragedies of real life were 
enacted. The court-house was the only intellectual 
center on the frontier, and thither the toiling dwellers 
in the prairie solitudes crowded, hungry for the men- 
tal excitement which the combats of the lawyers 
afforded. The proceedings were not technical or 
tedious. Neighborhood quarrels, common in a new 
country, were tried out and decided more by the 
broad rules of common sense or by the play of the 
emotions than by the refined processes of the law. 

In this arena, Lincoln easily led. With his many- 
sided nature, he had his special mood and manner 
for each case. If there was occasion for it, his 
broad humor and homely illustration caused the 
court room to ring with laughter. If his love of 
justice and hatred of wrong were aroused, judge 
and jury, bar and spectators, were thrilled by 
his passionate earnestness. His sorrowing eye and 
trembling voice, when his pity was touched, melted 
to compassion all within their range. 

On the other hand, let a cold abstraction of the 
law be his theme, and his native power of clear 
reasoning stripped it of all confusing technicali- 
ties until the main principle was made plain enough 
for the simplest understanding. He had no liking 
for abstruse speculations, no patience with legal 

9 1 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



hair-splitting. He did not care to win his cases by 
tricks, and generally refused to take sharp advantage 
of the mistakes of his opponents. If he had any 
truth on his side, he clung to that alone, indifferently 
yielding everything else. 

"Yes," he would say, as he gave up these minor 
points to the other side, in the careless speech which 
he was in the habit of using in his careless mood, 
"I reckon that's right," or "I hain't going to insist 
on that point." When, however, the "real nub" 
of the matter, as he called it, was reached, the oppos- 
ing lawyer found to his amazement that the easy- 
going Lincoln had turned to steel in a twinkling 
and was gripping like a vise the one vital point. 

He did not always have the right on his side; 
but the practice of few able and busy lawyers could 
bear as well as his has borne the searching examina- 
tion of history. When he went to court, he did not 
leave his private conscience at home, and he seems 
to have been as careful of his honor, as true to his 
ideals, in his profession as in his public life. 

As a rule men with bad cases did not go to 
him, because it was notorious that he was a poor 
lawyer in a poor case. "I think," said one of his 
fellow-attorneys, "he was of less real aid in trying 
a thoroughly bad case than any man I ever associated 
with." When he saw the weakness of his side, he 

92 



LIFE ON THE CIRCUIT 



lost courage. Once in the midst of a trial he turned 
to his associate counsel, exclaiming, "The fellow is 
guilty: you defend him; I can't." For the same 
reason he turned over another case to his junior, 
saying, "The jury will see that I think the man is 
guilty." While trying a civil suit, he discovered evi- 
dence that his client was attempting a fraud, and he 
fled from the court-house like a coward. 

Lincoln really stood in awe of the truth. If it 
was against him, his courage and his faith utterly 
forsook him. When Herndon, his young partner, 
once filed for the firm a plea that did not rest on 
known facts, Lincoln gently insisted that he with- 
draw it. "The cursed thing," he said, "may come 
staring us in the face long after this suit has been 
forgotten." He did not, indeed, urge a purely moral 
reason for the withdrawal of the plea, but it was the 
reasoning of a mind so wholly moral that it could 
not believe a lie ever would triumph. His repute for 
honesty and fairness swayed juries more than his 
spoken words. He did not bully a witness, but 
with natural kindliness led him along until he told 
the facts in spite of himself. 

His successes at the bar were not all won before 
rustic juries. He tried as many cases before the 
Supreme Court of Illinois in the last ten years of 
his practice as any man on his circuit. When he 

93 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



had been a lawyer only four years, he carried the 
Supreme bench with him in a strong argument 
against the validity of a note, which had been given 
in payment for a negro girl. His contention was 
that by the Ordinance of 1787, which he had first 
read in his Hoosier log-cabin in the borrowed volume 
of Indiana statutes, there could not be a lawful 
sale of a human being in any part of the original 
Northwest Territory. This early case of Lincoln's 
marked a precedent which was afterward cited in 
nearly a score of cases. 

In one instance, he was called to Chicago to try 
a big case involving the title to a valuable tract of 
land on the Lake front. In another interesting 
and important case, he laid down the rule that 
people had as much right to cross rivers as to go 
up and down them. This trial arose from the 
building of the first bridge over the Mississippi and 
from the fight which the boatmen made against 
it as an obstruction to their business. 

The worst disappointment of his professional ca- 
reer befell him when he went to Cincinnati as coun- 
sel in a reaper patent case. The opposing counsel 
was an eminent lawyer from the East. Lincoln 
welcomed the encounter and prepared for it by 
diligent study. His friends on the circuit were con- 
fident he would gain honor in this higher forum. 

94 




From the collection ol II. W. Fay, Esq., De Kalb, 111. 

Lincoln in his Circuit-riding Days 

He sat for this picture in a borrowed coat at the suggestion of the photographer 



LIFE ON THE CIRCUIT 



His client, however, who had four hundred thou- 
sand dollars at stake, lost heart when he beheld 
the brilliant talent arrayed against his homely 
country lawyer, and he called Edwin M. Stanton 
to his aid. Stanton carried matters with a high 
hand and ignored Lincoln, who, through an open 
door in a hotel, heard him scornfully exclaim, 
"Where did that long-armed creature come from 
and what can he expect to do in this case ?" Again 
he pictured him as "a long, lank creature from 
Illinois, wearing a dirty linen duster for a coat, on 
the back of which the perspiration had splotched 
wide stains that resembled a map of the continent." 

The unknown and melancholy stranger, without 
friends in the city, saw himself shut out of the trial 
of a celebrated case in which he had hoped to 
win distinction. He was deeply humiliated, but he 
drew a lesson from his bitter experience and obser- 
vation in Cincinnati. He frankly recognized that 
the lawyers there, college-bred men, were better 
trained than the lawyers on the old circuit. He saw 
that educated attorneys were working their way 
steadily toward the West. "They study their cases 
as we never do," he said. "They will soon be in 
Illinois and I am going home to study law. I am 
as good as any of them, and when they get out to 
Illinois, I shall be ready for them." 

95 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



No rebuff could crush for a moment the self- 
reliant spirit of the man; but his resolution to apply 
himself more closely and studiously to the law was at 
once overruled by events, calling him to still higher 
and heavier duties, for which his whole life had been 
fitting him. 

Although the bar, of which he was the unchallenged 
leader, could not boast great learning, it numbered 
many able men — men like himself, who knew more 
of practice than of theory. In a new land, without 
traditions, they had been thrown upon their own 
resources. Innocent of precedents and decisions, 
they had been obliged to blaze a path and break 
the soil for justice. Their task, if it did not make 
them finished lawyers, at least bred a company 
of strong, original men, who, when opportunity 
knocked at the doors of their village law offices, 
showed they were equally ready to lead in the 
council of the nation or to command on the field 
of battle. 



96 



CHAPTER XII 

HOME AND NEIGHBORS 



The two Lincolns: one the simple, homely, familiar neighbor; 
the other the solitary, moody idealist and prophet, whom no 
man knew. — Without kindred around him and without con- 
fidants. — His home life. — Mrs. Lincoln's social trials on 
his account. — Etiquette a closed book to him. — His knightly 
devotion and tender sympathy. — His relations with his boys. 
— Not a reader. — Fond of sad songs. — His real law office 
in his hat. — His orderly mind and faithful memory. — How 
he divided fees with his partner. — His famous defence of Jack 
Armstrong's son in a murder trial in May, 1858. 

Lincoln went through the world alone. 

There seem, indeed, to have been two Lincolns. 
The friends who knew him best saw hardly more 
than the plain, simple, practical man, who milked 
his cow, bedded his horse, and went to market with 
his basket on his arm, giving a cheery "howdy" to 
every one he met on the way, or who sat on a box 
at the foot of his office stairs and told stories to a 
group of street loiterers. 

They beheld another Lincoln, from time to time 
as he walked the street, completely wrapped in 
solitude, or as he sat brooding in his office by the 
hour and far into the night. His closest associates 
have confessed they seldom caught a glimpse of the 
h 97 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



inner Lincoln, the poet, the dreamer, the idealist, 
the prophet who pondered within the outer Lincoln 
and guided him on to his destiny. 

Whatever the sorrows of the man, whatever his 
hopes, he told them to no one, asked no one to share 
them. Not one of his kindred came forth from 
the lowly obscurity in which he was born to keep 
him company on the high road to fame. Without 
a mother, a brother, or a sister, he knew little or noth- 
ing of his race, save an illiterate father, who lived 
to see but not to understand the promise of his son's 
distinction. 

He had no chums in boyhood, and in manhood no 
confidants. He and his wife loyally kept their mutual 
vows, but they were held apart somewhat by nature 
and training. Mrs. Lincoln was her husband's 
most generous admirer and sincere adviser, watch- 
ing his political advancement with eager pride, for, 
like a woman of the old South, she was an ardent 
politician. Her delicate nervous system, however, 
was easily unstrung by family cares. 

Lincoln's innocence of social standards, so im- 
portant in her eyes, jarred upon her at times. She 
felt competent to make their home a center, be- 
fitting, as she felt, the honor in which he was 
held. He good-naturedly, if awkwardly, endured 
the ceremonials of the little capital city, going with 



HOME AND NEIGHBORS 



her to the "grand fetes," which she flatteringly 
pictured in her letters to Kentucky friends. More- 
over, they gave parties of their own, one of which 
she could boast was attended by three hundred 
persons. 

Careful as Lincoln was of the feelings of others, 
he offended, without knowing, his wife's sense of 
propriety, for etiquette remained always a closed 
book to him. At the table he might forget there 
was a special knife for the butter, or, if the bell 
rang, not wait for the busy "hired girl" to answer 
it, but, rising from his favorite position on the floor, 
himself go in his slippers and shirt sleeves to wel- 
come, perchance, some ladies who had come to 
make a fashionable call. 

All others in Springfield could more readily for- 
give their distinguished townsman his little lapses 
of this kind than could his proud and sensitive wife. 
Even the picture of her unhappiness easily might 
be overdrawn, for Lincoln's lack of the small graces 
of life was outweighed many times by his knightly 
honor, his patient devotion, as well as by the silent 
sympathy with which he bore her nerve storms. 

He delighted to carry his boys on his back and to 
take one of them by the hand when he went down 
town. Their turmoil never disturbed him. The mis- 
chief-making of youth only amused him ; he never 

99 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



viewed it with alarm. "Since I began this letter," he 
wrote to a friend, " a messenger came to tell me that 
Bob was lost; but by the time I reached the house, 
his mother had found him and had him whipped, 
and by now, very likely he is run away again/' 

When this same Bob was bitten by a dog, his anx- 
ious and always superstitious father dropped every- 
thing and took him to Indiana that a wonderful mad- 
stone in that state might be applied to the wound. 
The boys could go to his office and pull down the 
law books, scatter legal documents over the floor, 
and bend the points of the pens without ruffling 
his temper, however much they annoyed his partner. 

For Lincoln, the office was merely a shelter and 
a lounging place, with a chair to sit on and a sofa 
worn by use to fit his reclining body. His mind 
was orderly in a remarkable degree. His thought 
was clear and straight. He always knew just where 
to find anything in the carefully arranged compart- 
ments of his well-stocked head. His memory was 
most trustworthy. He made no notes in preparing 
his cases. A desk was a good enough foot-rest for 
him, but that was all. He would rather write on 
his knee, while his hat was sufficiently large to ac- 
commodate his letters and the memoranda of his 
thoughts, which he made from time to time on bits 
of paper. 

IOO 



HOME AND NEIGHBORS 



"When I received your letter," he wrote to a 
client, "I put it in my old hat, and, buying a new 
one the next day, the old one was laid aside and the 
letter was lost sight of for a time." Usually when 
the hat became crowded, he dumped its varied 
contents in a pile and labelled it thus, "When you 
can't find it anywhere else, look in this." 

He never kept any books or accounts. If he re- 
ceived a fee in the absence of his partner, he would 
carefully divide it at once, wrap up the latter's share, 
mark it "Herndon's half," and place it in the drawer. 

Lincoln liked to lie on the sofa and read the news- 
papers, and to the distraction of his partner read 
aloud, because, as he explained, in that way he took 
in what he was reading by the ear as well as by 
the eye. He was not, however, a regular reader 
of books, except for some special purpose which 
he had in hand. He knew the Bible well, and he 
knew much of Shakespeare. He was fond of Burns 
and Milton. Beyond these great works, from which 
he could recite long passages, he never went far in 
the field of literature. 

"Immortality," that morbidly mournful poem with 
its familiar line, 

"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ?" 

remained to the end the oft-quoted and favorite 
expression of his melancholy nature. 

IOI 



X 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



He took no interest in local gossip and no part 
in local rivalries. He was indifferent to town and 
county politics. He never held aloof, however, 
from his townsfolk. On the contrary, he was always 
a sympathetic sharer in their pleasures and their 
troubles, ever ready to lend a hand to a neighbor 
in need. One of the last criminal cases he tried 
was undertaken for a humble friend, in the midst 
of absorbing political activities. 

The son of that Jack Armstrong, the champion 
of Clary's Grove, whose loyal friendship Lincoln 
had won by whipping him in open battle at New 
Salem, was on trial for killing a man. Jack was 
in his grave, but his widow turned to Lincoln to 
save her boy. He gratefully remembered that the 
poor woman had been almost a mother to him in 
his friendless days and that her cabin had been his 
home when he had no other. He laid aside all 
else now and went to her aid. The defendant's 
guilt was extremely doubtful. 

The chief witness testified that he saw the boy 
strike the fatal blow and that the scene occurred 
about eleven o'clock at night. Lincoln inquired how 
he could have seen so clearly at that late hour. 
' By the moonlight," the witness answered. 
" \\ as there light enough to see everything that 
happened?" Lincoln asked. 

102 



HOME AND NEIGHBORS 



"The moon was about in the same place the sun 
would be at ten o'clock in the morning and nearly 
full," the man on the stand replied. 

Almost instantly Lincoln held out a calendar. 
By this he showed that on the night in question, 
the moon was only slightly past its first quarter, 
that it set within an hour after the fatal occurrence, 
and that it could, therefore, have shed little or no 
light on the scene of the alleged murder. The 
crowded court was electrified by the disclosure. 

"Hannah," whispered Lincoln as he turned to 
the mother, " Bill will be cleared before sundown." 

Then, addressing the jury, he told them how he 
had come to the boy's defence, not as a hired at- 
torney, but to discharge a debt of friendship incurred 
in the days when friends were few. With genuine 
feeling he summoned up the picture of the simple 
past, the old log-cabin of the Armstrongs', where 
the good woman now beside him in her silvered 
locks had taken him in, and given him food and 
shelter, and how she mended his tattered clothes 
while he rocked Bill to sleep in the cradle. 

Every member of the jury loved Lincoln and 
honored him. With tears of sympathy flowing 
down their cheeks, they gladly gave him the verdict 
which, with his whole heart, he begged from their 
hands. 

103 



CHAPTER XIII 

CALLED TO HIS LIFE MISSION 



The repeal of the Missouri Compromise passed by the Senate 
and celebrated by the firing of cannon, March 4, 1854. — The 
North's rude awakening. — Compromise, the old policy of 
the nation, thrown to the winds. — Slavery threatening the 
free soil of the West. — The Kansas-Nebraska Act and Sena- 
tor Stephen A. Douglas's popular sovereignty plan. ■ — Lincoln 
stirred as never before. — His first debates with Douglas. — 
Lincoln gave way to Lyman Trumbull, who was elected to 
the Senate in 1855. — The famous "Lost Speech" delivered 
at Bloomington, Illinois, May 29, 1856, when reporters forgot 
their duty as they sat bound in the spell of Lincoln's earnest- 
ness. — Lincoln's name presented for Vice-president to the 
first Republican National Convention in 1856. — How he 
received the news. 

The iron-throated cannon of the Washington 
Navy Yard, which, exulting over the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise, broke the stillness of the 
dawn of a March day in the year 1854, was the signal 
gun that awakened the sleeping nation to the last 
great conflict between freedom and slavery. While 
it proclaimed to the South the promise of more slave 
territory and more slave states, the North was rudely 
startled from its dream of peace and security. Its 
echo, rolling over mountain and plain, called Lincoln 
to his life mission. 

104 






CALLED TO HIS LIFE MISSION 

Compromise had been the policy of the country 
since the beginning. Now that policy was thrown 
to the winds. The Constitution itself was a com- 
promise. It had contemplated the prohibition of 
the African slave trade, but to satisfy the interests 
involved it had forbidden Congress to stop it until 
the lapse of twenty years. The Ordinance of 1787 
did not interfere with the spread of slavery into 
the Mississippi Valley of the South, but it forbade 
it forever in the Northwest Territory, a vast region 
stretching from the Ohio to the upper waters of the 
Mississippi. 

Following the purchase of the immense territory 
of Louisiana from France, the Missouri Com- 
promise of 1820 was devised. Missouri was to be 
admitted as a slave state, but slavery ever thereafter 
was to be excluded from the great plain lying be- 
tween the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains 
and above the parallel of 36 30'. 

When the war with Mexico had brought another 
large addition to the national domain, the Com- 
promise of 1850 was made. By this compromise 
the South agreed that California should be admitted 
as a free state, while the North conceded that all 
the rest of the newly acquired soil should be left 
unpledged either to freedom or to slavery, and at 
the same time it accepted the Fugitive Slave Act, 

105 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



an extreme measure which compelled the return 
of runaway slaves, who sought refuge within the 
holders of the free states. 

\\ ith the adoption of each of these historic com- 
promises, the statesmen who made them united 
in congratulating the country on a happy solution 
of the vexed problem for all time. Both political 
parties joined in hailing the Compromise of 1850 
as the end of the long feud between the sections. 
They agreed with one voice that the disturbing 
subject should be banished from discussion. 

"There shall be no more agitation," Daniel 
Webster thundered. "We will have peace." At 
the same time Henry Clay complimented the country 
on the acceptance of the Compromise everywhere 
"outside of Boston," while Douglas positively an- 
nounced that he never would make another speech 
on the hateful subject of slavery. Lincoln was not 
in politics, but he adopted the opinion of the leaders 
of both parties at Washington that the question was 
settled. 

It was a problem, however, which never had shown 
any pity for the repose of the Union, and within 
three years it rose again, a spectre at the feast. The 
time had come for Congress to set up territorial 
governments in that part of the Louisiana Purchase 
lying west of the Missouri River. This was a tract 

106 



CALLED TO HIS LIFE MISSION 

of land four hundred and seventy-five thousand 
square miles in extent and all of it bore the com- 
mon name of Nebraska. 

Less than a thousand white persons were scattered 
over that wild empire, which to-day includes the 
states of Nebraska, Kansas, Montana, and the two 
Dakotas, and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. 
It lay almost wholly north of the line drawn in the 
Missouri Compromise, and by that act, slavery was 
excluded from its soil. 

The South now pointed out that the Compromise 
of 1850 had left the question of slavery or freedom 
to be decided by the people of the territories of Utah 
and New Mexico which were acquired in the Mexi- 
can War, and it demanded that Nebraska be treated 
in strict accordance with the true spirit of that 
Compromise. All the territory of the United States, 
the southern leaders insisted, belonged equally to 
the people, North and South, and Congress had no 
right to exclude from it the lawful property of 
any citizen, whether it be property in slaves or in 
horses. 

The chairman of the Senate committee in charge 
of the subject was Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois. 
He had been a close second in the race for the 
Democratic nomination for President a little while 
before, and was aflame with desire for the nomina- 

107 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



tion in the coming campaign. The South had the 
power to bestow or withhold the great prize which 
he sought. For a time Douglas hesitated. 

In the end he yielded to the voice of ambition 
and became the able champion of the repeal of that 
time-honored compact, the Missouri Compromise. 
He proposed, in the creation of the territories of 
Kansas and Nebraska, to leave to the settlers, to 
the " popular sovereignty," as he pleasingly termed 
if, whether slavery should be adopted or forbidden 
on their soil, and he battled for his plan with the 
might of a "little giant," by which name his ad- 
mirers delighted to speak of him. 

With the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, 
the agitation of the question of slavery ceased to 
be local to Boston, as Clay had flattered himself 
only four years before, and ceased to be confined to 
Massachusetts or New England. An outburst of 
passion swept the land from the Atlantic to the Pa- 
cific, as the people of the North, with the freshly 
printed pages of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" before them, 
saw the institution cast its dark shadow across the 
free plains of the far West. 

Douglas was for the moment bewildered by the 
storm of earnest protest. "This tornado," he ex- 
claimed, "has been raised by Abolitionists and 
Abolitionists alone." Abolitionists, however, were 

1 08 




From the collection ol Frederick II. Meserve, Esq., New York Citj 

Stephen A. Douglas 



CALLED TO HIS LIFE MISSION 

still few in number. If it had been a question 
of abolishing slavery in the South, he could have 
counted its advocates by the hundred. It was now 
a question of abolishing freedom in the North, and 
the people rallied to the standard by the tens of 
thousands. 

Douglas afterward said that when he left Washing- 
ton he could have traveled from Boston to Chicago 
by the light of his own burning effigies. Arriving 
in the latter city, then his home, he was greeted 
by sullen crowds in the streets, while flags drooped 
at half mast on the vessels and at half staff on the 
buildings. The bells were tolled at sunset, as if for 
his funeral. A meeting was arranged for him in 
the open air, but there he was received with hisses 
and groans. As these grew louder and louder, this 
long-time master of popular audiences angrily but 
vainly shouted for attention. For more than two 
hours the struggle continued, until at last he with- 
drew and the crowd roared in triumph. 

Quitting the frowning city, he went into the coun- 
try, where he still met with coldness or worse, until 
he turned his face southward, when his welcome im- 
proved. At Springfield, however, he was confronted 
by a figure more menacing to his progress than the 
noisy thousands of a city mob. It was the earnest 
figure of Lincoln, which Douglas, in his swift climb 

109 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



up the heights of fame, had left and all but forgotten 
in the obscurity of a country law office. 

Lincoln was, as he said, losing interest in politics 
when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise stirred 
him as he never had been stirred before. It is true 
he had not at any time looked upon the institution 
of slavery with indifference. It had, he wrote, 
"continually exercised the power to make me miser- 
able." 

\\ hen, as a flatboatman, he saw the young woman 
on the slave block at New Orleans offered to the high- 
est bidder, his hot indignation was aroused. Again, 
as a young legislator, when he heard a unanimous 
shout of approval of a resolution denouncing all 
agitation of the question, he and one other member 
stood alone in recording their judgment that slavery 
was wrong. 

\\ hen he saw the slave pen of Washington from 
the door of the Capitol and saw negroes held as 
chattels in the Federal city, he offered a bill abolish- 
ing slavery and the trade in human beings in the 
District of Columbia. Now, when he saw slavery 
threatening the free soil of Kansas and Nebraska, 
he telt the crisis had come between freedom and 
bondage, and that a great and solemn duty was 
marked out for him. 

1 lie man stood before his friends transformed. 

no 



CALLED TO HIS LIFE MISSION 

Some of the most influential among them fell away 
from him in his zeal in the new cause. He cared 
to talk of nothing else. He ceased to jest. 

The Legislature to be elected that year would 
have the duty of electing an associate for Douglas 
in the Senate, and Lincoln became the Whig candi- 
date for that seat. He prepared himself by study as 
if he had been richly retained in a great law case. 

In his opening speech at Springfield, Douglas said 
he understood that "Mr. Lincoln of this city" would 
reply to him. Lincoln was in the audience and the 
next night, there in the State House, he delivered 
his rejoinder before an assemblage that crowded 
the hall. He had invited Douglas to attend, and 
while he spoke the Senator sat directly in front of 
him and more than once started to his feet as he 
felt the force of his adversary's logic. 

For four hours Lincoln spoke with an earnestness 
which shook his giant frame and awed friend and 
foe alike. Without fear of the brilliant debater 
who had crossed swords with Webster and the great 
orators of the Senate, he challenged him, point by 
point. From this time he was the leader of his 
party in the state, and from all parts of Illinois 
urgent requests for speeches poured in upon him. 

He followed Douglas to Peoria, and there, in 
a big meeting, they divided the time between them. 

in 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



His readiness in the debate amazed his opponent. 
By his clear reasoning, he coined his arguments 
into powerful maxims, so simple that they sank into 
the understanding of every hearer : " W hen the white 
man governs himself, that is self-government; but 
when he governs himself and also governs another 
man, that is more than self-government — that is 
despotism." "No man is good enough to govern 
another man without that other's consent." "Re- 
peal the Missouri Compromise, repeal all compro- 
mise, repeal the Declaration of Independence, repeal 
all past history, still you cannot repeal human na- 
ture." "Our Republican robe is soiled and trailed 
in the dust. Let us purify it. Let us turn and 
wash it white, in the spirit if not in the blood of 
the Revolution." 

Thus a new voice was raised in the land, not, it 
is true, in the halls of Congress, nor yet in Faneuil 
Hall or before a brilliant assemblage in a great city 
with the presses waiting to spread its utterance 
abroad. It was lifted far out on the prairies, where 
there were no reporters to echo it; yet, in good time, 
it was heard all over the country. There was no 
report whatever of the Springfield speech; the 
Peoria speech, Lincoln wrote out in his own hand 
for his home paper. 

Douglas frankly told him that he had given him 

112 



CALLED TO HIS LIFE MISSION 

more trouble than Sumner, Seward, Chase, or any 
of the men he had met on the floor of the Senate. 
They had agreed to debate at another meeting 
near by, but the debate did not take place. On 
the contrary, to the surprise of their followers, 
they parted, each going to his home. Douglas may 
have cried enough and begged off on account of 
ill health, as it is asserted he did; but there is no 
record by which to solve the mystery of the sudden 
ending of the campaign. 

Lincoln's side won in the election, but he failed 
to be chosen Senator because a few anti-Douglas 
Democrats in the Legislature refused to vote for 
a Whig. He yielded to them and gave the election 
to Lyman Trumbull, an able member of their party, 
who was not less zealous than himself in opposing 
slavery in the territories. 

Though defeated, he did not lower the standard 
which he had raised. Every event justified his 
belief that the crisis had come. Under the lead 
of Douglas, Congress had left the question of slavery 
to be decided by the settlers on the plains, and Kansas 
became a bloody battleground between armed men, 
who rushed in from the North and from the South 
and who debated the problem with knives and 
rifles and the torch. Rival settlements and govern- 
ments of Northerners and Southerners were broken 
i 113 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



up and destroyed in a war of extermination almost 
as savage as any that had ravaged the land when 
tribes of red men fought for the possession of it. 
Indeed, white women fled with their children to the 
protection of the Indians. 

When the campaign for the election of President 
came in 1856, the Whig party was a wreck. Lincoln 
joined the organization which rose on its ruins 
and became a Republican. He was welcomed at 
the State Convention of the new party as its natural 
leader. There, speaking for the first time as a Re- 
publican, the great cause in which his whole soul 
was enlisted moved him to deliver an address of 
such wonderful power that even the press reporters 
forgot their duty as they sat bound in its spell, and 
it has passed into history as the "lost speech." The 
reports all praised it and editors drew their texts 
from it; but no one could reproduce the "lost 
speech." The delegates, however, carried its in- 
spiration with them to the first National Conven- 
tion of the Republican party about to meet in 
Philadelphia. 

\\ hile that Convention was in session, Lincoln 
was on the circuit, trying cases. One noon as he 
came to dinner at the tavern where he was staying 
he found an excited group, discussing the news from 
the Philadelphia Convention, which they were reading 

114 



CALLED TO HIS LIFE MISSION 

in a Chicago paper. Fremont had been nominated 
for President, and in the balloting for Vice-president 
one hundred and ten votes were recorded for Lin- 
coln. The latter protested with a careless air, that 
they could not have been thinking of him, and that 
the votes must have been meant for a Massachusetts 
Lincoln. 

Further reports, however, showed that the Illinois 
delegates had proudly presented the name of the 
author of the "lost speech," and while, happily, he 
was not chosen for the second place on the ticket, 
they had introduced to the nation the name of 
Abraham Lincoln. 



"5 



CHAPTER XIV 

A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF : 



The Lincoln-Douglas contest for the Senate in 1858. — Douglas's 
restored popularity. — Leading Republicans discourage any 
opposition to the "Little Giant's" reelection. — Lincoln 
alarmed by the Dred Scott Decision, March 6, 1857. — Deaf 
to friends who warned him against declaring that the Union 
could not endure half slave and half free. — His celebrated 
opening speech at Springfield, Illinois, June 16, 1858. — He 
matched himself against Douglas at the climax of the latter's 
brilliant career. — Their personal references to each other. — 
"You cannot fool all the people all the time." 

When Douglas went before the people of Illinois 
in 1858, asking for a third term in the Senate of 
the United States, Lincoln dared to match himself 
against the most famous and brilliant campaigner 
of the time, at the height of his popularity. 

By his remarkable skill in juggling the issues 
of the hour, Douglas seemed to have regained the 
favor he had lost by his repeal of the Missouri Com- 
promise. Balancing between the North and the 
South, he had raised in each section the hope that 
his great weight would be lent to its cause. Now, 
on the eve of his canvass for reelection, he boldly 
arrayed himself against President Buchanan and 
the national administration of his own party on a 

116 



"A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF" 

question arising in the bitter struggle between the 
forces of slavery and antislavery in Kansas, and 
took his stand with the Republicans in the Senate. 
His display of courage won for him loud applause 
throughout the North. 

Horace Greeley and other distinguished Re- 
publican leaders urged the Republicans of Illi- 
nois to join hands with him and return him to 
the Senate by a unanimous vote. Lincoln was 
deaf to these appeals. He believed the time had 
passed for compromise on the question of the 
spread of slavery. He was in no mood to play 
politics in what he solemnly felt was a crisis be- 
tween right and wrong. 

In the celebrated case of Dred Scott, the Supreme 
Court had lately decided that slavery could not be 
excluded from the territories. That court of last 
resort now held that the Constitution guaranteed 
forever "the right to traffic" in slaves, "like an 
ordinary article of merchandise," in all the territory 
of the United States. 

Lincoln refused to abide by this sweeping doctrine, 
because he believed that if it were accepted, the next 
step would be to declare that the free states them- 
selves could not lawfully exclude the traffic from 
their soil. He foresaw slavery invading his own 
state of Illinois, and assailing there the system of 

117 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



free labor, by which he and men like him had toiled 
up from poverty and ignorance. 

I he battle for freedom was on and he determined 
not to vield an inch of ground. "I know there is 
a God," a friend has quoted him as saying in a 
private talk; "and He hates injustice and slavery. 
I see the storm coming. I know His hand is in it. 
If He has a place and work for me — and I think 
He has — I believe I am ready. I am nothing, but 
truth is everything." 

As the time drew near, when the Republicans of 
Illinois were to meet in convention and nominate 
him as their candidate for the Senate, he was seen, 
day after day, busily making notes on bits of paper, 
which he tucked away in his hat. He consulted 
with no one. He asked no advice. He did not even 
tell his partner what he was doing. 

( >n the day before the convention he broke his 
silence, and, calling twelve or fifteen friends to- 
gether in the State Library, he read to them the 
speech which he had prepared for the occasion, and 
which opened with this now immortal statement: 
\ house divided against itself cannot stand. 
1 believe this government cannot endure permanently 
halt slave and half free. I do not expect the Union 
t.> be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall 
but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It 
118 



"A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF" 

will become all one thing, or all the other. Either 
the opponents of slavery will arrest the further 
spread of it, and place it where the public mind 
shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ulti- 
mate extinction; or its advocates will push it for- 
ward till it shall become alike lawful in all the states, 
old as well as new, North as well as South. . . ." 

When Lincoln had read his entire speech to the 
little group of neighbors, every man present warned 
him that such a frank announcement would surely 
defeat him for the Senate; but one of them, Mr. 
Herndon, his partner, who rejoiced in its boldness, 
declared, "Lincoln, deliver that speech as read and 
it will make you President." No one else, however, 
expressed any sympathy with the utterance, and 
most of those present warmly denounced it as fool- 
ish and disastrous. Lincoln was unmoved by their 
earnest and sometimes angry protests. 

"Friends," said he, "the time has come when 
these sentiments should be uttered, and if it is 
decreed that I should go down because of this speech, 
then let me go down linked with the truth." He 
explained that he had taken from the Bible the state- 
ment that " a house divided against itself cannot 
stand," because every one would know what it 
meant, and that it would strike home to the minds 
of men and arouse them to the perils of the time. 

119 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Without changing a word in it, he delivered the 
speech the next day and braved the criticisms which 
came to him from many quarters. He had thrown 
away his party's chance for victory and ruined his 
own fortunes, he was told over and over again. 
Nevertheless, to one of his critics he said, "If I 
had to draw a pen across my record and erase my 
whole life from sight, and I had one poor gift or 
choice left as to what I should save from the wreck, 
I should choose that speech and leave it to the world 
unerased." 

Yet he was not blind to the unequal combat on 
which he had entered and which his warmest ad- 
mirers dreaded. Although he was forty-nine years 
old, he was still a country lawyer, struggling to make 
a living. He had no organized following, for he 
was not a politician of the machine kind. He was 
without encouragement from the Republicans of 
other states, and he was without money. His sole 
reliance must be the great truth which had taken 
hold oi him and made him its champion. 

Douglas, on the other hand, had sat on the bench 
of the Supreme Court of Illinois at the early age of 
twenty-eight; he had entered Congress at thirty-one 
and been a Senator since his thirty-third year. At 
thirty-nine he had fallen only two votes behind the 
leading candidate for President in the early bal- 

I20 



"A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF" 

loting of the Democratic National Convention of 
1852, and had led all rivals for that highest honor on 
the first ballot in the Convention of 1856. He was 
yet in his forty-fifth year and marked out as the 
only choice of the northern Democracy in the next 
contest for the Presidency. 

For many years he had been the undisputed master 
of politics in Illinois, with a large, obedient, and well- 
drilled following, proud of the fame he had won 
for their young state and confident of the added 
luster he was to shed upon it from the presidential 
chair. Through an ambitious marriage and success- 
ful investments in Chicago real estate, he was the 
possessor of an independent fortune. A man of the 
great world, he had been welcomed in the capitals 
of Europe, while his house in Washington was noted 
for its hospitality. 

Coming on from Washington to open his cam- 
paign, he entered Chicago in a dazzling triumph, 
and, in the presence of cheering thousands, eagerly 
took up the gage of battle which Lincoln had thrown 
down. His opponent was there to hear the renowned 
Senator patronizingly refer to him as " a kind-hearted, 
amiable gentleman, a right good fellow, a worthy 
citizen, of eminent ability as a lawyer, and, I have 
no doubt, of sufficient ability to make a good Senator." 
The issues between them were made up, he said, 

121 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



as he rang the changes on Lincoln's simile of "a 
house divided against itself," and they involved the 
questions of obedience or disobedience to the decrees 
of the Supreme Court, and peace or war between 
the sections. 

When Lincoln replied the next evening, he pictured 
his opponent as a man of world-wide celebrity, whose 
followers for years had felt certain he would be 
President, and "they have seen in his round, jolly, 
fruitful face, post-offices, marshalships, and cabinet 
appointments, chargeships and foreign missions 
bursting and sprouting out, ready to be laid hold 
of by their greedy hands." No one, on the con- 
trary, Lincoln continued, had ever expected him to 
be President. "In my poor, lean, lank face nobody 
has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting out." 
Apart from these personal references, there was 
little levity in his address and nothing else to detract 
from its earnestness and force. 

A familiar quotation from Lincoln is attributed 
to a speech which he made in the early part of his 
campaign, but which cannot be found in his published 
works. "You can fool all the people some of the 
time," so runs the phrase, "and some of the people 
all the time; but you cannot fool all the people 
all the time." After the most painstaking investi- 
gation it is impossible to say with certainty where 

122 



"A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF" 

or whether Lincoln made this remark. It so happily 
expresses his faith in the final wisdom of the common 
people, however, that the words are likely ever to 
stand to the credit of his name. 

As Douglas journeyed down the state, his triumph 
continued, and he seemed to be having his own im- 
perious way with the cheering people. At Spring- 
field, Lincoln replied to him, and, referring to some 
sharp personal flings, he protested that he intended 
to conduct the canvass strictly as a gentleman, "in 
substance at least, if not in the outside polish. The 
latter I shall never be, but that which constitutes 
the inside of a gentleman, I hope I understand." 

He confessed he had been a "flat failure" in the 
race of ambition on which he and Douglas had 
started in that very town twenty years before, and 
he added, "I affect no contempt for the high eminence 
he has reached. So reached that the oppressed 
of my species might have shared with me in the 
elevation, I would rather stand on that eminence 
than wear the richest crown that ever pressed a 
monarch's brow." 



123 



CHAPTER XV 

THE GREAT DEBATE 



Douglas challenged by Lincoln, July 24, 1858. — National at- 
tention attracted to their joint meetings. — The opening debate 
at Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, 1858. — A picturesque audience. 
— The prairies lit up by the camp-fires of the great crowd. — 
Sharp contrasts between the two antagonists. — Their ap- 
pearance and their methods. — Friends beg Lincoln not to 
ask his "Freeport questions," August 27, 1858. — "The 
battle of i860 is worth a hundred of this." — Douglas's tour 
made in great state in McClellan's car while Lincoln rode in 
a crowded coach. — The position of each speaker on the slavery 
question. — Douglas's costly campaign. — His slender victory 
at the polls. — "A slip and not a fall." 

Lincoln now determined to challenge Douglas 
to meet him in joint debate. It was midsummer, 
and he realized he had not stemmed the tide of 
popular interest which was bearing his antagonist 
on to success. 

W ith the prestige of his name and with his art as 
a stump speaker, Douglas was filling the eye and the 
car of the state, skilfully juggling with all sorts of 
questions. Lincoln, on the other hand, was making 
poor headway, unaided, as he was, by the glamour 
of victory and confined by his own serious purpose 
to the single issue of the restriction of slavery. It 

124 



THE GREAT DEBATE 



was under these circumstances that he resolved to 
confront his wily opponent face to face on the plat- 
form, in an effort to hold him to a logical discussion 
of the real question of the campaign and focus 
upon it the attention of the people. 

Douglas did not shrink from a close encounter, 
and an agreement was readily made for seven 
debates. Lincoln's friends were fearful. Not a 
few of them thought he was placing his head in the 
lion's mouth. 

The great battle opened in August. The eye of 
the nation was attracted by the duel. Press cor- 
respondents hastened to the scene from as far away 
as New York, and car-loads of people from Chicago 
poured into the dusty little village which had been 
chosen for the first debate. Country folk came 
the night before in wagons, on horseback, and afoot, 
and their camp-fires lit up the prairie as if an army 
were in bivouac. 

The meeting was held in the open air in the pres- 
ence of a vast throng, before which the two cham- 
pions stood in sharp contrast. Douglas was hardly 
five feet four inches tall, but his broad shoulders 
and stalwart neck were surmounted by a head mas- 
sive and majestic. His voice could deepen to a 
roar, while, well-groomed and prosperous-looking, 
he strode the stage as one at home and at ease. 

125 



A I) RAH AM LINCOLN 



Lincoln's clothes, on the contrary, hung on his 
frame of six feet four as if it were a rack. Little 
twinkling gray eyes lit up, when aroused, the shadows 
of sorrow in his furrowed face, above which a shock 
of coarse dark hair tumbled in utter lawlessness. 
A high tenor voice, nervously running almost into 
a piping falsetto, added to the disappointment of the 
first impression which his presence gave. To com- 
plete an unpromising picture, his stooping figure 
with the hands clasped at the back was stiff with 
awkwardness as he began to speak. 

The very homeliness of the man, however, his 
modest bearing, and his air of mingled sadness and 
sincerity excited sympathy and drew to him the 
hearts of the plain people. When he had warmed 
to his task, and his big right hand had fallen to his 
side, ready to point out with a long, bony finger 
the truth he felt, and when his head swung back- 
ward or forward in an expressive emphasis, the 
listeners found their thought as well as their feeling 
enlisted. He seemed to have no stage manners, 
no studied art. His gestures were as simple as his 
words, yet when he was deeply stirred, waves of 
emotion swept over him, his thin voice softened 
into music, and his giant figure was glorified by 
a heroic spirit. 

\t the end of this first encounter between the two 
126 



THE GREAT DEBATE 



men, most of the politicians on both sides felt that 
Douglas had outclassed his opponent. Lincoln's 
partisans in the crowd, however, did not share that 
feeling. Those near the stand rushed upon it, and, 
in their enthusiasm, lifted him to their shoulders and 
bore him away to his tavern. 

"Don't, boys," he pleaded in vain; "let me down; 
come now, don't." He was in too serious a mood 
to like any of the usual claptrap of campaigning. 
He had little patience with "fizzlegigs and fireworks," 
as he described the spectacular aspects of the contest. 

After the meeting, modestly reassuring a friend, 
he wrote, "Douglas and I for the first time this 
canvass crossed swords here yesterday. The fire 
flew some and I am glad to say I am yet alive." 

He determined to draw a heavier fire at the next 
chance. The night before the second debate he 
showed some followers the notes of several questions 
which he intended to ask Douglas. The friends, 
taking alarm, begged him not to put one of the ques- 
tions, but he stood firm against their entreaties as 
they gathered about him at midnight in his sleeping 
room. 

"If vou put it," one of them finally warned him, 
"vou can never be Senator." 

"Gentlemen," he answered, as he drew his lips 
together between the words, "I am killing larger 

127 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



game; if Douglas answers, he can never be Presi- 
dent, and the battle of i860 is worth a hundred 
of this." 

Keeping his resolve, he asked Douglas, the next 
day, if, in his opinion, the people of a territory could 
lawfully exclude slavery from its limits. In other 
words, he asked him if there was anything left 
of his popular sovereignty doctrine now that the 
Supreme Court had decided in the Dred Scott case 
that slavery could not be prohibited in the territories. 

Douglas answered that there still remained a 
way to restrict slavery and that a territorial legisla- 
ture could keep it out of the territory by "unfriendly 
legislation," regardless of the Supreme Court. This 
reply made possible his success in Illinois and his 
reelection to the Senate; but the South, as Lincoln 
expected it would, greeted with an outburst of 
denunciation this " Freeport heresy," so called 
because of the name of the little town in which 
the momentous question was put and answered. 

The debates fully justified Lincoln's purpose 
in proposing them. They aroused public opinion 
as perhaps no other political meetings anywhere 
ever have aroused it. No one could ignore the one 
question at issue or remain indifferent to the result. 
1 he excitement spread like a prairie fire. 

People swarmed to the meetings by the thousands. 
128 



THE GREAT DEBATE 



They came from forty and fifty miles around, entire 
families leaving their homes and taking their bed- 
ding and their cooking utensils with them. Gay 
cavalcades of young men and wagons laden with 
rustic belles escorted the speakers to the meeting 
places, which were roofed by the open sky and with 
only the far horizon of the flat lands for their walls. 

The debates were justified as well by their dig- 
nity. The most restless and enthusiastic crowds 
were free from ruffianism. The debaters and their 
audiences were sobered and exalted by the imposing 
theme of discussion. Little wooden villages were 
made historic by the immortal words uttered within 
their limits. 

Douglas and Lincoln both sought to avoid 
personalities, but the latter's better temper gave 
him the advantage in this respect. Only once did 
he fall to the level of recrimination, when he was 
stung to say of his rival, "I don't want to quarrel 
with him ... to call him a liar, but when I come 
square up to him, I don't know what else to call 
him." 

At another time, however, he referred to a certain 
show of fight which Douglas had made and assured 
the people there would be no fight between them. 
"He and I are about the best friends in the world," 
said Lincoln, "and when we get together he would 
k 129 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



no more think of fighting me than of fighting his 
wife." Douglas sometimes broke out with a fiery 
retort to the "black Republicans" who interrupted 
him. "I am clinching Lincoln now, and you are 
scared to death," he shouted one day when the 
crowd became noisy. 

Each man staked his election wholly on the slavery 
question. Neither dodged it or digressed to any 
other subject. The greatest disadvantage which 
Douglas suffered, as we see him in the light of a later 
day, is to be charged to the position he took. His 
face was turned to the past and all its dark preju- 
dices, while Lincoln's was turned to the future 
and its noble hopes. Douglas had the Union and 
the Constitution, the Supreme Court and the su- 
premacy of the law, with which to round his swell- 
ing periods; but over his head forever hung the evil 
shadow of human bondage. 

" 1 don't care whether slavery be voted up or 
voted down," he said, with the eye of his ambi- 
tion always on the South and the Presidency. 
" I don't believe the negro is any kin of mine at all," 
lie declared, while he flung his contempt at "black 
niggers" and demanded, with cynical carelessness, 
" \\ ho among you expects to live, or have his children 
live, until slavery shall be established in Illinois or 
abolished in South Carolina?" 

130 




Lincoln in his Prime 



THE GREAT DEBATE 



Above this counsel of despair, Lincoln's tones 
rang out like the voice of a prophet. On his side 
there was no past with its legacy of old wrongs to 
be defended. He took his stand for a clear principle, 
for a lofty ideal of human rights, and the eternal 
years are his. The speeches he delivered in that 
campaign have taken their place among the master- 
pieces of political oratory, and retain the power to 
thrill and inspire a generation unborn when he 
grappled with the "little giant" on the plains of 
Illinois. 

Yet his practical mind held him closely to practi- 
cal things. He was not an Abolitionist. Had he 
tried to address an antislavery meeting in Boston, he 
would have been hooted off the platform. He never 
failed to deny Douglas's charge that he believed in 
"nigger equality." 

He frankly said he would not make voters or 
jurors of the negroes; and he gave it as his opinion 
that "there is a physical difference between the white 
and black races which I believe will forever forbid 
the two races living together on social and political 
equality." Nevertheless, he maintained that "in the 
right to put into his mouth the bread that his own 
hands have earned, the negro is the peer of Judge 
Douglas or any other man." 

He raised no agitation against slavery in the 

*3 l 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



states where it was established under the authority 
of the Constitution, although he hoped for its " ulti- 
mate peaceable extinction" everywhere. His every 
reference to his own native South and to the slave- 
holders was temperate and even charitable. 

The southern people, he admitted, were acting 
as the people of the North would act in the same 
situation. "If slavery did not exist among them, 
they would not introduce it. If it did now exist 
among us, we should not instantly give it up. . . . 
I surely will not blame them for not doing what 
I should not know how to do myself." 

His sole concern was to stop the spread of slavery, 
which he had hated his life long; to keep it out of 
the territories and out of the free states of the North. 
In this cause alone he pledged himself to strive, 
until wherever the Federal government had power 
"the sun shall shine, the rain shall fall, and the 
wind shall blow upon no man who goes forth to un- 
requited toil." 

In the closing debate, which took place at Alton, 
n< ii St. Louis, standing where he could look across 
the Mississippi and see the shore of the slave state 
ol Missouri, he rested his entire case on the naked 
question, "Is slavery wrong?" 

" I hat is the real issue," he said with solemn 
impressiveness. "That is the issue that will con- 

132 



THE GREAT DEBATE 



tinue in this country when these poor tongues of 
Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is 
the eternal struggle between these two principles — 
right and wrong — throughout the world." 

Lincoln's voice, now at the end of the contest, 
was as clear as in the beginning, while Douglas's 
heavier voice was husky and broken. In the course 
of the campaign there had been only seven debates, 
but between their joint meetings each had delivered 
fully a hundred speeches, besides managing all the 
details of the canvass. 

Douglas traveled in great state from point to point 
in the private car of George B. McClellan, who had 
lately resigned from the army to become a high 
official of the Illinois Central Railway. He carried 
with him a band of musicians, and on a flat car 
attached to his coach was a cannon to proclaim 
his coming. Mrs. Douglas often accompanied the 
Senator, and the influence of her beauty and her 
gracious manner was regarded with fear by her 
husband's opponents. 

The railway corporation was not friendly to the 
new party and its disturbing agitation, and Lincoln 
was obliged to content himself with half a seat in 
a common car. In such cramped quarters he was 
more than once compelled to sit up through a weari- 
some night journey, 

J 33 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Douglas had spent, in his lavish manner, eighty 
thousand dollars of his private fortune. Lincoln 
had no fortune on which to draw, and his party 
had little machinery to be run. As it was, his 
campaign cost him nearly a thousand dollars, an 
expense which he could ill afford. 

In the election, Lincoln's side received a majority 
of five thousand on the popular vote, but the arrange- 
ment of the districts was such that a few more 
Democrats than Republicans were chosen to the 
Legislature, which reelected Douglas to the Senate. 

While Lincoln was walking home in the gloom 
of the rainy election night after reading the reports 
of his defeat, he lost his footing in the muddy street; 
but, recovering his balance, he drew from the little 
incident a good omen, saying to himself as his 
thought recurred to the event of the day, "It is 
a slip and not a fall." 



x 34 



CHAPTER XVI 

A NATIONAL FIGURE 



'The fight must go on." — "I shall fight in the ranks." — Douglas's 
dearly bought victory. — Lincoln, lacking money for house- 
hold expenses at end of campaign, returned to work on the 
circuit. — Rising demand upon him to speak in all parts of 
the country. — Answering Douglas in Ohio, September, 1859. 
— His position on Knownothingism defined. — Proposed for 
the Presidency. — "I am not fit to be President." — Address- 
ing a great meeting in Cooper Union, New York, February 27, 
i860. — His triumphs in the East. — His New Haven speech 
held up as an example in English before a class at Yale. 

Lincoln had met his Bunker Hill. He had 
taken his stand and fought a good fight in a cause 
that could not fail. "Though I now sink out of 
view and shall be forgotten," he wrote to a dis- 
consolate supporter, "I believe I have made some 
marks which will tell for the cause of civil liberty 
long after I am gone." Another received this coun- 
sel from the defeated candidate, "Let the past as 
nothing be. . . . The fight must go on," and "I 
shall fight in the ranks." 

Douglas's victory was his own undoing. The 
Democrats of the South, indignant over the ad- 
missions and concessions which he had felt forced 

J 35 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



to make in his debates with Lincoln, denounced 
him as a traitor to his party. He had won the Sena- 
torship but was losing the Presidency. With his 
usual boldness he hastened southward to reassure 
the people of the slave states that he had really 
yielded nothing of value to the interests of slavery. 
The Almighty, he pleaded, had drawn a line between 
slave labor and free labor, and slavery could not be 
adopted with profit in the territory of the North- 
west. 

His valiant efforts to bridge the chasm were all 
in vain. The house was, in truth, divided against 
itself. Each day verified anew Lincoln's stern 
metaphor. Even the Christian Church, in most 
of its denominations, was divided against itself 
along Mason and Dixon's unhappy line. 

Douglas's own party was hopelessly divided 
against itself, and he returned to Washington to 
find that the Democratic caucus of the Senate had 
removed him in disgrace from the chairmanship of 
the committee on territories which he had held for 
eleven years. Jefferson Davis and other southern 
senators vigorously assailed the "Freeport heresy," 
and the Lincoln-Douglas debates were the subject 
ol tamest discussion on the floor of the Senate 
through two sessions. 

Meanwhile Lincoln was again at work on the 
136 



A NATIONAL FIGURE 



circuit in the old task of getting a living. The lost 
time and his campaign expenses had told heavily on 
his slender purse. "I am absolutely without money," 
he explained, "even for household expenses." 

As the state campaigns of 1859 were opened, his 
services were called for in many places, Kansas, 
Minnesota, and Iowa being among the earliest to 
seek his aid. Wherever Douglas appeared, there 
was a loud demand for Lincoln. Distant New 
Hampshire urged him to come there to answer his 
famous adversary, and New York and Ohio made 
like requests. "I have been a great man such a 
mighty little time," he confessed to an enthusiastic 
admirer, "that I am not used to it yet." 

An Indiana leader wrote to tell him that his counsel 
carried such weight that every political letter failing 
from his pen was copied throughout the Union. 
In these letters, which he wrote to his correspondents 
and to committees, he modestly offered much sane 
advice. 

"I have some little notoriety," he observed on 
the subject of Knownothingism, "for commiserating 
the oppressed condition of the negro; and I should 
be strangely inconsistent if I could favor any project 
for curtailing the existing rights of white men, even 
though born in different lands and speaking different 
languages from myself." 

137 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



To a Boston organization he sent this clear 
message: "This is a world of compensation, and 
he who would be no slave must be content to have 
no slave. Those who deny freedom to others deserve 
it not for themselves, and, under a just God, cannot 
long retain it." 

When Douglas went to Ohio, Lincoln accepted 
urgent invitations to answer him at Cincinnati and 
Columbus. There the Republican State Committee 
published the reports of the Illinois debates and 
Lincoln's two Ohio speeches for general circulation, 
as the best means of educating the people on the 
issues of the coming campaign of i860. Thus Lin- 
coln was chosen as the champion of his party's 
cause before the entire nation, and three huge 
editions of the addresses found a ready sale. 

The men around him, as they gazed wonderingly 
on the growing fame of their simple neighbor, began 
to dream of high honors in store for him. One little 
weekly paper in central Illinois already carried at 
the head of its columns the name of Lincoln for 
President. He himself, however, did not yet share 
these dreams. 

" What is the use of talking of me, while we have 
such men as Seward and Chase?" he said, when 
popped on the street by an admiring prophet. 
" Every one knows them and scarcely any one out- 

138 



A NATIONAL FIGURE 



side of Illinois knows me. Besides, as a matter 
of justice, is it not due to them ? There is no such 
good luck for me as the Presidency of these United 
States." With that he wrapped his old gray shawl 
around his shoulders and stalked away. 

"I must in candor say," he wrote in a confidential 
letter in the spring of 1859, "that I do not think 
myself fit for the Presidency," and he requested 
that such a thing be not publicly proposed. In 
midsummer of that year, only nine months before 
the nomination was to be made, he repeated this 
modest statement, and as late as December indicated 
that he intended to bide his time until Douglas came 
up again for election, five years away, and try once 
more for his seat in the Senate. "I would rather," 
he said, "have a full term in the Senate than in the 
Presidency." 

It was not until a meeting of the party leaders 
of Illinois was held in the winter that he con- 
sented to let himself be presented as a candidate for 
President. 

He was much pleased by an invitation, which he 
had received, to deliver a lecture in New York. 
His friends were wildly delighted by this recognition 
of him in the metropolis. Again he burrowed in 
the State Library and spared no pains in his prep- 
aration to acquit himself with credit before an 

i39 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



audience of strangers in the great city. Lincoln 
was not a diffident man. He was not given to self- 
depreciation. He felt his pow T er. He was, however, 
doubtful of his success before the New Yorkers, 
so different in their training and taste from his 
western people. 

Arrived in the city, he went to hear Henry Ward 
Beecher preach, and, with a friend, he visited Five 
Points, then the notorious center of the slums of 
New York, where he found himself in a missionary 
Sunday-school. Being a stranger, he was called 
on to speak to the children, and his homely and 
kindly talk so pleased them that they cried, when he 
paused, "Go on," "Oh, do go on." As he was 
leaving the room, the teacher asked him his name. 
"Abraham Lincoln, from Illinois," he simply an- 
swered. 

\\ hen the committee, which had invited him to New 
^ ork, called on him at the Astor House, and he saw 
its members in their fashionable attire, he seemed 
to be conscious of his own awkward appearance for 
the first time in his life. He felt under the neces- 
sity of apologizing for the wrinkled condition of his 
suit, which he had brought with him in a valise; 
and in beginning his speech he was again embar- 
rassed as he looked at the well-clothed dignitaries 
on the platform. The collar of his coat did not 

140 



A NATIONAL FIGURE 



fit, and he was troubled lest the audience noted 
its bad habit of flying out of place whenever he 
raised his arms. 

The meeting, probably the most memorable ever 
held in New York, took place in Cooper Institute. 
It was an imposing occasion. "No man," one 
newspaper said, "since the days of Clay and Webster, 
has spoken to a larger assemblage of the intellect 
and mental culture of our city." William Cullen 
Bryant presided. Horace Greeley and men of light 
and leading were in attendance. 

The speech which he delivered was so packed 
with fact and reason that it was stripped bare of 
rhetorical flourish. It was a spacious review of 
the entire constitutional, legislative, and political 
history of the institution of slavery since the nation 
was founded. Those who heard it felt their intel- 
ligence complimented by the moderation, fairness, 
and soberness of the learned argument, fit to be 
addressed to a bench of judges. They were not 
called on to listen to the special pleading of a trim- 
ming politician, to suffer their prejudices to be 
aroused by an artful stump speaker, or to reward 
with guffaws his idle jests. 

"Let us have faith," was the high keynote he 
struck, "that right makes might, and, in that faith 
let us to the end, dare to do our duty as we under- 

141 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



stand it." The four leading papers of the city re- 
ported the speech in full, and Greeley said in the 
Tribune, "No man ever before made such an im- 
pression in his first appeal to a New York audience." 

New York has been the pitfall of more than one 
visiting statesman. It was there that Abraham 
Lincoln proved to himself his power to lead the 
nation and disproved to himself his original con- 
ception that he was "not fit to be President." 

From this great triumph, Lincoln went to New 
England to see his son, Robert, who was at school, 
and he spoke in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New 
Hampshire. At New Haven he told his hearers 
that twenty-five years before he was "a hired laborer, 
mauling rails, or at work on a flatboat," and that 
he wished every laborer, black as well as white, to 
have the same chance to rise that he had enjoyed. 

The professor of rhetoric in Yale College observed 
with admiration the fine structure of his speech. 
He not only took notes of it and held it up before 
his class the next day as an example in English 
composition, but he followed the speaker to a neigh- 
boring city, that he might again sit at the feet of 
this self-taught master of our mother tongue. 



142 






CHAPTER XVII 

THE STANDARD BEARER 



Lincoln's nomination for President a mystery of politics. — All 
signs pointed to the choice of Seward. — Seward men on 
their arrival in Chicago amazed by Lincoln's popularity. — 
The great scene in the Wigwam at Chicago; Lincoln nominated, 
May 1 8, i860. — The third and final ballot: Lincoln of Illinois, 
231 ; Seward of New York, 180; Chase of Ohio, 24; Bates 
of Missouri, 22; Collamer of Vermont, 5. — How Lincoln 
received the news. — His melancholy presentiment. — The 
East stunned by the choice of the rail-splitter. — Douglas's 
tribute to his old-time foe. — Lincoln's silence in the cam- 
paign. — The "Wide Awakes" and their "rail-fence march." — 
The result of the election, November 6, i860: Lincoln of 
Illinois, Republican, 1,866,452; Douglas of Illinois, Northern 
Democrat, 1,375,157; Breckinridge of Kentucky, Southern 
Democrat, 847,953; Bell of Tennessee, Constitutional Union, 
590,631. — Electoral vote: Lincoln, 180; Breckinridge, 72; 
Bell, 39; Douglas, 12. 

As the time drew near for the meeting of the 
Republican National Convention of i860, all signs 
seemed to point to the choice of William H. Seward 
of New York, and Lincoln's nomination for Presi- 
dent remains one of the mysteries of politics. 

A large majority of the representative men of the 
Republican party throughout the country favored 
Seward. Wealth and influence were enlisted on 

i43 



A i; RAH AM LINCOLN 



his side. He was easily the foremost member of 
the party. State after state, in the West as well 
as in the East, declared for him. Indeed, no 
other candidate had succeeded in winning any 
open support beyond the borders of his own 
state. His opponents were regarded merely as 
"favorite sons." 

It has been estimated that nearly if not quite 
two-thirds of the delegates went to the National 
Convention with the expectation of voting for 
Seward and nominating him. At least eight of 
the twenty-two delegates from Illinois herself favored 
him, while he left his place in the Senate and went 
home to be in readiness to receive the committee 
of notification. 

Lincoln had consented to let the Republicans of 
Illinois present his name, but chiefly with the idea 
that in this way he might help the party in the 
state and keep himself in line for Douglas's seat 
in the Senate. He never was heard to express a 
definite hope that he would be nominated for Pres- 
ident. At one time he was afraid he would not 
have the support even of his own state. He never 
looked upon himself as a positive and aggressive 
candidate. 

" I suppose," he wrote to an Ohio man two months 
before the Convention, "I am not the first choice 

144 



THE STANDARD BEARER 



of a very great many. Our policy, then, is to give 
no offense to others — leave them in a mood to come 
to us if they shall be compelled to give up their first 
love. 

Only a few weeks in advance of the Convention, 
he was for some time in Chicago, where he was en- 
gaged in court. His presence in the city attracted 
no attention among politicians or in the press. 
Nothing occurred in the course of his stay that 
foreshadowed the great acclaim with which, in that 
very city a month hence, he was to be nominated 
for the highest honor in the land. 

Nevertheless, some of Lincoln's loyal old friends 
on the circuit, the men whom he had been drawing 
to him ever since he walked into New Salem with 
his wardrobe in a bandanna handkerchief, were 
not inactive. They quietly visited other states 
and canvassed the public men at Washington, 
sowing the seed for him as a second choice or as 
the compromise candidate. 

Yet his name was not always included in the list 
of possibilities in the eastern press, and the East' 
did not seriously consider him in connection with 
the Presidency until the meeting of the Illinois State 
Convention, which was held only one week before 
the assembling of the National Convention. 

As Lincoln was going to this former gathering, 

l 145 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



some one expressed his surprise. "Oh," he smil 
"I am not enough of a candidate to make it prooer 
for me to absent myself." When, however, .ne 
State Convention assembled, with delegates 3Yom 
all over Illinois in attendance, an unexpected en- 
thusiasm for his candidacy was disclosed, a ie 
was unanimously named as the choice of the state. 

At the right moment, John Hanks and another 
man were marched into the hall, bearing twc o>u 
rails, which, Hanks declared, Lincoln had split when 
fencing in his father's farm on the Sangamon, nearly 
thirty years before. The assemblage went wild 
over these symbols of their leader's humble toil, 
and the rails were carried thence to Chicago, where 
women garlanded them with flowers and where 
they were as proudly displayed as if they had been 
the swords of a military hero. 

Chicago caught the Lincoln contagion, as the 
western people streamed by the thousands into 
the rude, unkempt city. It was the first National 
Convention ever held there, and indeed the second 
to be held west of the Alleghanies. The star of 
empire, in its westward course, had now risen over 
the great valley of the Mississippi, and a conscious- 
ness of their supreme power in the nation was 
dawning upon the stalwart builders of the new states. 

Until now the South and the East had ruled. 
146 




From the collection of Frederick H. Meserve, Esq., New York City 

Life Mask of Lincoln 

Made by Leonard W. Yolk in Chicago in 1S60 



THE STANDARD BEARER 



At last the scepter was passing from their hands. 
All the Presidents thus far had been born in the old 
states of the seaboard. In Lincoln, the rail-splitter, 
the West beheld itself typified, and its people rallied 
to his standard. 

As, with an easy assurance of command, the delega- 
tions of distinguished men came out from the East 
under the banners of Seward, they were dazed by 
the rising and boisterous enthusiasm for his almost 
unheard-of rival. 

The New Yorkers slapped their pockets and 
boasted of the money they could raise for the election, 
if their man should be nominated. Their brilliant 
bands and drilled clubs marched and counter- 
marched in the dusty streets, but their lines wavered 
under the cheering onslaughts of the Lincoln men. 
Judge David Davis was on the scene, tirelessly 
moving from headquarters to headquarters in his 
missionary efforts, aided by a devoted group of 
Lincoln's comrades on the old circuit. 

Before the assembling of the Convention, Indi- 
ana, a doubtful state of the first importance in the 
election, came out boldly for the western candidate, 
and demanded his nomination. Ohio, with a candi- 
date of her own, began to drift toward Lincoln as 
her final choice. Pennsylvania, also with a home 
candidate, tended in the same direction. The 

J 47 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Chicago newspapers united to swell the tide. Delega- 
tions from all sections showed signs of weakening. 

Seward's long record on old issues raised preju- 
dices against him. Lincoln, on the other hand, 
stood only for the living question of the day. Even 
on this he had a popular advantage of Seward, 
whose battles with the slave power in the Senate 
through many years had spread abroad the fear 
that he was a man of radical views, while Lincoln's 
comparative obscurity made it easier for the con- 
servatives to support him. 

The Convention assembled in an immense wooden 
wigwam, set up for the occasion, and ten thousand 
spectators crowded into it. In the strategy of the 
first two days the more skilful politicians of the 
Seward following outgeneraled the opposition, and 
the confidence in the nomination of the veteran 
statesman of New York rose to its climax on the 
very eve of the balloting. Nearly every press cor- 
respondent, from Horace Greeley down, telegraphed 
a prediction of Seward's victory. 

1 lie men from Lincoln's circuit did not lie down 
to sleep that last night. Their candidate, in the 
quiet of Springfield, had taken alarm lest their 
zeal in his cause should blind them to the standards 
<>t conduct, which were more precious to him than 
any ambition. A messenger was despatched to 



THE STANDARD BEARER 



them, with this written warning from Lincoln, 
"Make no contracts that will bind me." He would 
rather be free in his country law office than sit in the 
chair of the President with a mortgage on his head. 

The nominating day came. The Seward clubs 
marched the streets as in triumph. While they 
paraded, however, the shouters for Lincoln swarmed 
into the wigwam, and the proud paraders, when 
they came, found awaiting them standing room only, 
and little even of that. Many a partisan of Seward 
was left to waste his cheers in the outer air. 

In those days no speeches were made in placing 
candidates in nomination. Their names were merely 
proposed and seconded without remarks. The mo- 
tions for Seward were wildly applauded. When, 
however, Lincoln's nomination was moved, it was 
seized upon as the signal for such an uproar as never 
had been heard in a National Convention. A leader 
had been carefully chosen for the purpose, a man of 
extraordinary vocal power, and he had summoned 
from the prairies a lusty-throated lieutenant, who, 
though a Democrat, so delighted to hear himself 
roar that he did not object to lending his lungs to 
the enemy. 

At the close of these vociferous exercises, men 
held their breath while the roll of the states was 
called. Here again was the "house divided against 

149 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



itself." Nine states of the South did not respond, 
for they sent no representatives to the Convention, 
and the names of some of them were hissed and 
jeered as the clerk called them. 

i he hopes of the Seward men fell as they heard 
Maine ive nearly one-third, New Hampshire two- 
thirds, and Massachusetts a fifth of their votes to 
Lincoln. Even New England was yielding to the 
mar from the West. On this first ballot, Seward 
was more than a score of votes short of the neces- 
sary majority. His total was 1735 against 102 for 
Lincoln. 

Vermont broke to the Illinoisan on the second 
ballot and Pennsylvania swung into line with her 
large delegation. Lincoln gained throughout the 
roll-call and at -the end Seward was only three and 
a half votes ahead. 

On the third ballot, Lincoln commanded a ma- 
jority of the Rhode Island and New Jersey votes. 
The Ohioans forsook their candidate, and most 
of them went to Lincoln, who, at the close of the 
call, stood within a vote and a half of victory. 
A delegate from Ohio leaped up and announced 
the change of ,( votes in that delegation to 
Lincoln. This v.., more than enough. 

A clerk, not waiting for the official announcement 
of the result, waved a tally sheet in the air and 




< 3 

5 » 

o u 

< « 

z I 

i-I a! 

S3 

2 £ 



a £ 






THE STANDARD BEARER 



shouted "Abe Lincoln!" to a man on the roof, 
who was anxiously peering through the skylight 
and who now cried the news to the crowd in the 
street. The mad cheering within was instantly 
caught up without, while the echoes of a booming 
cannon rolled over the waters of Lake Michigan. 

A huge and horrible picture of the strange-look- 
ing man of destiny was hurried into the hall, where 
delegations, in an eagerness to change their votes 
to the credit of the winning side, were frantically 
striving to make themselves heard above the fierce 
din. New York and Massachusetts dolefully bowed 
to the will of the majority. Men staggered from 
the exciting scene as if drunk, the victors overcome 
by a sensation of joy, the vanquished by the burden 
of their disappointment. 

Lincoln relieved the strain of the convention days 
by strolling the streets of Springfield, and by playing 
"barn ball " — simply throwing a ball against a wall 
and catching it as it bounded back. During the 
progress of the first two ballots he sat in the telegraph 
office and added up the votes as the bulletins came 
in. Feeling that his nomination was assured, he 
accepted an invitation to visit the office of the 
local newspaper and wait there for the third ballot. 
Soon a breathless messenger brought him the news 
of his success as he sat in the editor's big arm-chair. 

151 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



"There is a little woman down at our house, who 
will like to hear this," Lincoln said, after he had 
read the despatch aloud. "I'll go down and tell 
her," and he was gone before any one in the 
room had recovered from the effect of the report 
sufficiently to offer congratulations. 

As he reached the sidewalk, a group of laborers, 
Irish immigrants, cheered him heartily. "Gentle- 
men," he said to them, by way of acknowledging 
their friendly tribute, "you had better come up 
and shake my hand while you can; honors elevate 
some men, you know." 

When he had given the tidings to the "little woman," 
who had been the first to believe in his greatness 
and who had been the most constant in her confi- 
dence that the world would recognize it, he went up- 
stairs, and, exhausted by repressed excitement, lay 
down on the couch in Mrs. Lincoln's sitting room. 

While lying there he was disturbed to see in a mir- 
ror two images of himself, which were alike, except 
that one was not so clear as the other. The double 
reflection awakened the primitive vein of supersti- 
tion, always present in him. He rose and lay down 
again to see if the paler shadow would vanish, but 
he saw it once more. Some friends coming to call, 
he left the room and its annoying glass. 

W hen he was down town the next morning, the 
152 



THE STANDARD BEARER 



disagreeable impression of the day before returned 
to him. He went home and reclined on the couch 
to see if there were not something wrong with the 
mirror itself. He was reassured to find it played 
the same trick. When he tried to show it to Mrs. 
Lincoln, however, the second reflection failed to 
appear. Mrs. Lincoln took it as a sign that he 
was to have two terms in the Presidency, but she 
feared the paleness of one of the figures signified 
that he would not live through the second term. 

He himself never was free from an unhappy pre- 
sentiment. "I am sure," he said to his partner 
once, "I shall meet with some terrible end," and 
he told him that in his opinion Caesar had been 
foreordained to be slain by Brutus, and that Brutus 
but obeyed a law of his being, which he was power- 
less to overrule. 

The committee of notables who came the day 
after the nomination to place in his hand the standard 
of the Republican party, found Lincoln struggling 
to throw ofF the melancholy that had settled upon 
him in the midst of his great success. They went 
to the unpretending village house in which he lived, 
curious and anxious to see the man who had been 
chosen, they hardly knew how or why, to lead them 
in a contest more momentous than any other in 
the history of American politics. 

i53 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



On the committee were men from all the states 
that took part in the Convention, not a few of whom 
were more widely known than their nominee. As 
they crowded into the parlor and approached him, 
most of them looked on him for the first time, and 
several have recorded the shock of disappointment 
which they felt. They saw a man with none of 
the outlines and with none of the manners of the 
conventional statesman, a new kind of man in the 
eyes of the visitors from the older states. 

He stood there before them, stiff and dull, until 
the time came for him to reply to the address of 
the chairman. Then he lifted his head and his 
face lighted up with strength and gentleness. After 
his brief speech, his constraint entirely left him and 
he was as free as if among his familiars. 

I he guests passed into the back parlor, where 
Mrs. Lincoln greeted them, and the toasts of the 
evening were drunk in water, for Lincoln declined 
to open a lot of liquors, which some friends had pro- 
vided, because he did not like the idea of changing 
the custom of his home even if he was a candidate 
for President. 

"What is your height?" was Lincoln's greeting 
to the tall member from Pennsylvania, for he was 
always interested in tall men. 

"Six feet, three. What is yours, Mr. Lincoln?" 
154 



THE STANDARD BEARER 



"Six feet, four," Lincoln answered, ever proud of 
his stature. 

"Then Pennsylvania bows to Illinois, a land where 
we thought there were none but little giants." 

As the delegates left Chicago, after the nomination, 
they sped homeward across prairies illuminated 
with bonfires, and past villages whose rejoicings 
rang out from all the belfries. The East, however, 
was stunned by the seeming prank of fortune which 
had crowned with the supreme honor a "third-rate 
country lawyer," as a great New York journal said. 
The eastern press spread before their readers the 
scant biographical sketches of Lincoln which they 
were able to gather, and hastened their reporters 
to Springfield to "write up" this great unknown. 

There was a grave fear in some quarters that 
a noisy western crowd had stampeded the delegates 
into the thoughtless choice of a smart local politician. 
Many caught in their mind's eye only the grotesque 
picture of an uncouth rail-splitter, pushing himself 
forward by the arts of a frontier demagogue. "Who 
is this huckster in politics?" Wendell Phillips 
demanded from Boston; "Who is this county court 
advocate ?" 

There was at least one man of note in Washington 
who could speak intelligently of the nominee. This 
was Stephen A. Douglas. He was among the first 

i55 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



at the capital to receive the news and he was able 
to quiet the fears of his Republican associates in 
the Senate. "Gentlemen," he said to them, "you 
have nominated a very able and a very honest man." 

Douglas himself stood as the candidate of the 
Democratic party of the North, while Breckinridge 
was the candidate of the party in the South. Thus 
divided, there was no chance of success for either. 

Lincoln's election was reasonably certain from 
the outset. He adopted at once the policy of letting 
well enough alone. Aside from his little speech 
of acceptance and his letter to the same point, con- 
taining less than one hundred and fifty words, he 
kept a strict silence throughout the campaign and 
did not once leave Springfield. All the tempta- 
tions of vanity to parade himself or his views, every 
impulse to correct the misrepresentations and mis- 
understandings of him, which were rife, he firmly 
resisted. 

The canvass developed a good deal of enthusiasm. 
\\ ide Awake Clubs in their picturesque costumes 
sprang up all over the country, and their zigzag 
"rail-tence march," as it was outlined by the blazing 
torches which they bore, in honor of "Old Abe, 
the rail-splitter of the Sangamon," was in high favor. 

In the election, Lincoln received a plurality of 
the votes in every free state and a clear majority 

156 



THE STANDARD BEARER 



over all in the electoral college. But in ten states 
of the South not a ballot was cast for him. Thus 
was made manifest the "house divided against 
itself." 

While the cheers of his proud and happy towns- 
people filled the air on election night, the bitter 
anguish of the nation's jeopardy was in his heart, 
and in his face the shadow of his awful responsi- 
bility. 



*57 



CHAPTER XVIII 

PRESIDENT-ELECT 



Lincoln confronted at the outset by a crisis in the life of the nation. 
— The cotton states of the South refused to abide by the elec- 
tion of a northern man on an antislavery platform. — The 
North bewildered by the preparations for secession. — Many 
Northerners gave up the Union. — "Wayward sisters, depart 
in peace." — Lincoln's beacon lights. — His firm stand for the 
Union. — Men feared he could not be inaugurated in Wash- 
ington. — Parting from his stepmother. — Her gloomy fore- 
bodings. — His property. — Obliged to borrow money for 
White House expenses. — His last visit to the old law office. 

The usual portion of a President-elect, the en- 
joyment of success and the good wishes of a united 
people, was denied Lincoln. Instead, angry con- 
fusion reigned around him. 

1 he leaders of the far South, the cotton states, 
had determined in advance not to abide by the 
election of a northern man, standing on a platform 
which declared it the right and duty of Congress to 
forbid slavery in the territories. They, too, had 
weaned of compromise. If they had supported 
Douglas and his doctrine of "popular sovereignty," 
Lincoln could not have been elected. They chose, 
instead, to break with the Democratic party of the 
North and follow Breckinridge, who had taken 

153 



PRESIDENT-ELECT 



his stand squarely against the power of the govern- 
ment to set bounds to the institution of slavery. 

As they seceded from their party rather than 
accept the nomination of Douglas, so now the radi- 
cal men at the South were ready to secede from the 
Union itself rather than accept the election of Lin- 
coln. South Carolina, without waiting for the 
result of the voting, made the first move toward 
secession, and the men of the neighboring states 
gravely planned to join the revolt. 

The booksellers of Charleston rejected an edition 
of Harper s Weekly because it contained a portrait 
and sketch of the President-elect, while a paper 
in that city soon printed its Washington despatches 
under the general headline, "Foreign News." 

Most of the people of the North had carelessly 
assumed that the threats of disunion, which they 
had heard for many months, were uttered only for 
political effect. Now as they saw grim preparations 
for dividing the country, they were bewildered. A 
babel of voices sprang up in the counsels of the free 
states. 

The Union as a national ideal did not yet inspire 
the passion which all the people have felt for it since 
it was cemented by the best blood of both the North 
and the South and ransomed from destruction by 
the treasure poured forth with a lavish hand in the 

i59 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



long Civil War. It had been for so many years the 
football of sectional politics that in i860 there were 
many, alike in the slave states and the free states, 
who held it lightly. 

There were Republicans, like Horace Greeley, 
who insisted on letting the South go its own way, 
and Henry Ward Beecher, who argued that secession 
would be a good thing for the North. The Aboli- 
tionists cried, "Let the Union slide," and Winfield 
Scott, the venerable and patriotic Lieutenant-general 
of the army, advised the Federal government to 
say, "Wayward sisters, depart in peace." Seward 
and a large section of the Republicans turned with 
hope to the old policy of compromise, and not less 
than forty measures, in this spirit, were presented to 
Congress. 

To the moral panic, a financial and industrial 
panic was added. Banks suspended, trade was 
paralyzed, and the national treasury nearly bank- 
rupt. The country seemed to stand on the brink 
of wholesale disaster. The Mayor of New York 
solemnly called on the city council to consider the 
advisability of the secession of Manhattan Island 
and the establishment of the municipality as a free 
city. 

J here were signs in the North of a violent re- 
action in sentiment on the question of slavery. 

160 




From the collectic 



Copyright, 1894, by II. W. Fay 
i of H. W. Fay, Esq , De Kalb, 111. 

Lincoln when President-elect 

Made before he left Springfield 



PRESIDENT-ELECT 



Again, a broadcloth mob rose up in Boston to dis- 
perse an Abolition meeting, and one hundred 
policemen were required for the safe conduct of 
Wendell Phillips through the streets of that city. 
Many Republicans lamented the election of Lincoln, 
as the cause of all the distress which had befallen 
the land. 

Meanwhile the President-elect went his silent 
way. He continued to occupy the room in the 
State House which he had adopted as his office 
at the time of his nomination. Its door was un- 
guarded and all could freely enter. Office seekers 
swarmed about him and friends surrounded him, 
yet he dwelt apart. 

When he left the telegraph office in which he 
received the returns on election night, the frame- 
work of his cabinet was complete in his mind. 
With characteristic self-reliance, he acted wholly on 
his own judgment. He did not mention the subject 
even to Herndon. " He never confided to me any 
of his purposes," said Judge David Davis. When 
the time came for him to prepare his inaugural 
address, he withdrew to a room over a store and 
there wrote it in solitude. 

It is probably true that he could look no farther 
than others into the dark and troubled future. In 
common with most of the northern leaders, he shared 
m 161 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



the delusions of hope. The coming of a great 
war was not foreseen by Lincoln. While, however, 
he had no set of policies all made up and ready 
for the emergency, he had principles, and he was 
steadfastly true to them. They were his safe guide 
in the storm, which buffeted other statesmen about 
like corks in a surf. His course was marked out 
solely by two ideals, — the Union and the restric- 
tion of slavery. These were his beacon lights, 
and he steered toward them with an unfaltering 
hand. 

Only once since election had his voice been heard 
in public. To those who were celebrating his 
success, he spoke five short sentences, the last of 
which expressed the spirit of the whole, "Let us 
at all times remember that all American citizens 
are brothers of a common country, and should dwell 
together in the bonds of fraternal feeling." 

From every direction, demands came for him to 
speak or act, but he resolutely refrained from adding 
to the volume of idle sound. There was an anxious 
desire all over the country to take the measure of 
the untried leader. In a letter to Senator Henry 
Wilson of Massachusetts, Mr. Herndon, Lincoln's 
partner, drew this remarkably just portrait: "Lin- 
coln is a man of heart, ay, as gentle as a woman's 
and as tender — but he has a will as strong as iron. 

162 



PRESIDENT-ELECT 



He, therefore, loves all mankind, hates slavery 
and every form of despotism. . . . 

"Lincoln will fail here, namely, if a question 
of political economy — if any question comes up 
which is doubtful, questionable, which no man can 
demonstrate, then his friends can rule him ; but, 
when on justice, right, liberty, the government, 
the Constitution, and the Union, then you may all 
stand aside; he will rule then, and no man can 
rule him — no set of men can do it. There is no 
fail here. This is Lincoln, and you mark my pre- 
diction. You and I must keep the people right; 
God will keep Lincoln right." 

He summoned distinguished men to Springfield, 
and some of them have confessed the disagreeable 
surprise they felt on first beholding the new chieftain. 
As likely as not, when they pulled the bell of his 
modest home, he himself in his " snufF-colored and 
slouchy pantaloons, open black vest, held by a 
few brass buttons," would let them in. While he 
talked in his quaint way, perhaps his two little 
boys would clamber over him, poking their fingers 
in his eyes and mouth, without reproof or even 
notice from their father. 

Through these visitors and through confidential 
letters to friends, the President-elect put forth, 
little by little, the steadying influence of his own 

163 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



firm conviction of duty. Leaders were inspired by 
him to take heart in the cause of the Union. As 
early as November 15 he gave it as his impression 
that "the government possesses both the authority 
and the power to maintain its integrity." 

In the midst of the projects for patching up a peace, 
the wavering in Washington received this sharp 
warning, written on December 11: "Entertain no 
proposals for a compromise in regard to the extension 
of slavery. The instant you do, they have us under 
again ; all our labor is lost and sooner or later must 
be done over again. . . . The tug has to come, 
and better now than later." Two days afterward 
came this clear injunction, "Hold firm as a chain of 
steel." 

To a famous and influential politician of New 
York he wrote, in this same week, " My opinion 
is that no state can, in any way, lawfully get out of 
the Union without the consent of the others." On 
December 21 he directed a friend in Washington 
to present his compliments to General Scott and to 
"tell him confidentially I shall be obliged to him to 
be as well prepared as he can to either hold or re- 
take the forts (in the seceded states), as the case 
may require, at and after the inauguration." 

"Is it desired," he wrote a southern acquaintance, 
"that I shall shift the ground upon which I was 

164 



PRESIDENT-ELECT 



elected ? I cannot do it." He would not repent 
of "the crime of having been elected," and would 
neither apologize nor beg forgiveness. Assuring 
Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, with whom he 
served in Congress and who was to become the 
Vice-president of the Confederate states, that the 
South would be in no more danger of interference 
in its affairs under his administration than it was 
under Washington's, he frankly added, "I suppose, 
however, that does not meet the case. You think 
slavery is right and ought to be extended, while we 
think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That, 
I suppose, is the rub. It certainly is the only sub- 
stantial difference between us." 

If Lincoln was able to show forbearance toward 
the South, he had no patience with the frantic cry 
for compromise which rose from men of business 
in the North, intent more on profit than on prin- 
ciple. "They seek a sign," he sternly declared, 
"and no sign shall be given them. ... I am not 
insensible to any commercial or financial depres- 
sion that may exist, but nothing is to be gained 
by fawning around the 'respectable scoundrels' who 
got it up. Let them go to work to repair the mis- 
chief of their own doing and then perhaps they 
will be less greedy to do the like again." 

Each day brought some new menace to the Union, 

165 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



and it became doubtful if Lincoln would be inaugu- 
rated in peace. Edwin M. Stanton, then Attorney- 
general of the United States, said, toward the end of 
January, he did not think it probable or hardly pos- 
sible that the government would be in Washington 
on the fourth of March. 

The seceding states were striving to draw Virginia 
with them. If the Old Dominion could be induced 
to secede, Maryland would be likely to follow her. 
Thus the Federal capital would be surrounded 
by secession states and cut off from the North. 
The Confederacy would make Washington its own 
capital and leave the new President of the United 
States to set up his government somewhere else. 

Moreover, there was a chance that Lincoln's 
election would not be declared by Congress. The 
Republicans were in a minority in the Senate, and 
the presiding officer, whose duty it was to open 
the returns, was Vice-president Breckinridge, the 
southern candidate for President who had been 
defeated at the polls. 

It was feared under these circumstances that the 
Vice-president and the unfriendly majority in the 
Senate would prevent the counting of the votes and 
the declaration of the result. There was much 
anxiety on this account, and Lincoln decided to stay 
in Springfield until the question was settled. Happily 

1 66 



PRESIDENT-ELECT 



the Vice-president and the Senate discharged their 
duty in an orderly manner. 

When it became an assured fact that the vote 
would be counted, the President-elect was ready 
to start on his journey to Washington. With Mrs. 
Lincoln he had paid a brief visit to Chicago, and 
there she bought for the inauguration the first silk 
dress she ever owned. As they were unpacking 
their purchases, after their return home, the husband 
remarked: "Well, wife, there is one thing likely 
to come out of this scrape anyhow. We are going 
to have some new clothes." 

As he was about to leave Springfield to assume 
the exalted station to which he had been called, he 
did not forget the simple woman who had brought 
sunshine into his desolate boyhood, whose faithful 
hands had clothed him, and who had given him 
a chance to go to school and learn his letters, rlis 
good stepmother was still living, and he was loyally 
caring for her in her old age. 

He now turned from his high honors and heavy 
tasks to visit her in her home. The people came 
out in great crowds to cheer him on his way to 
his humble destination. When his brief visit was 
finished, the noble woman parted from him with 
gloomy forebodings. She feared his enemies would 
kill him. In the throng of old neighbors and 



167 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



friends who poured into his office at the State 
House to bid him farewell, Hannah Armstrong came 
from Clary's Grove. She, too, was filled with anxiety 
for his safety. 

Lincoln had found a tenant for his house and 
had sold its furnishings. This dwelling, together 
with a piece of land in Iowa which he had received 
from the government as a reward for his service 
in the Black Hawk War and a house lot in Lincoln, 
Illinois, a town which had been named for him, 
constituted the whole of his property. In its entirety 
it would have brought ten or twelve thousand dollars. 
He had so little ready money, however, that he was 
forced to borrow in order to pay his expenses in 
the White House, until he could draw the first 
quarterly instalment of his salary as President. 

On his last day in Springfield he went to the old 
law office in the little back room, where his great 
duty had found him, and there stretched himself on 
the well-worn lounge. As he gazed up at the dusty 
ceiling, he feelingly recalled to his partner their 
long association, in which they never had a "cross 
word." 

Then he referred in a sentimental vein to their 
sign, which had swung on its hinges until it was 
nearly covered with rust, and he asked "Billy," 
as he called Herndon, to let it hang there until he 

1 68 



PRESIDENT-ELECT 



came back from Washington, and then they would 
go on practising law just as if he never had been 
President. 

Rising and walking to the door, however, he spoke 
of a presentiment that he would not return alive. 
Herndon chided him for his lack of philosophy. 
"But," he insisted, "it is in keeping with my phi- 
losophy." Turning away with a mournful face, 
he walked down the stairs and passed under the 
creaking sign for the last time. 



169 



CHAPTER XIX 

GOING TO WASHINGTON 



Lincoln's eloquent farewell to his Springfield neighbors, February 
ii, 1861. — "Not knowing when or whether ever I may re- 
turn." — His journey eastward. — His greeting to a little girl, 
at whose suggestion he had grown a beard. — Caricatured as 
a sot. — Coldly received in New York. — Pleading for the 
threatened Union. — His solemn pledge at Independence Hall 
on Washington's birthday. — Warned of a plot to murder him 
as he passed through Baltimore. — Stealing into Washington in 
the night. — His unexpected arrival at the capital at dawn, 
February 23. 

Lincoln, standing on the rear platform of his 
special car in the train that was about to bear him 
away to Washington, lifted his hand as a signal for 
silence. He stood there, a solemn figure, and a 
spell fell upon the neighbors who had gathered 
at the Springfield station on a chill and dreary 
February morning to bid him farewell. 

He had removed his hat and they, too, bared their 
heads to the falling snowflakes. While he gazed at 
them in silence for several seconds, his lip quivered 
with grief and there was a tear on his cheek. When 
at last he had summoned the strength to speak, his 
husky tone added to the impressiveness of the few 
sad words he chose for the leave-taking: — 

170 



GOING TO WASHINGTON 



"My friends, no one, not in my situation, can 
appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. 
To this place, and the kindness of these people, 
I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of 
a century, and have passed from a young to an old 
man. Here my children have been born, and one 
is buried. 

"I now leave, not knowing when or whether 
ever I may return, with a task before me greater 
than that which rested upon Washington. With- 
out the assistance of that Divine Being who ever 
attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assist- 
ance, I cannot fail. 

"Trusting in Him, who can go with me, and 
remain with you, and be everywhere for good, 
let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. 
To His care commending you, as I hope in your 
prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affec- 
tionate farewell." 

The train pulled away, followed by the brimming 
eyes of the people, and, until it had disappeared 
from their view, they could see Lincoln, still stand- 
ing on the platform of his car, looking at the little 
town where fame had sought him out. 

In his young manhood he had walked its streets, 
a barefoot law student. In one of its halls he had 
sounded the warning that a house divided against 

171 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



itself cannot stand, and now his was the chosen 
hand to avert the national calamity which he then 
foretold. Within its limits was the only home 
that stood between the log-cabins of his early days 
and the White House toward which he was speed- 
ing. On the morrow he would reach his fifty-second 
birthday. 

If, as he said, the task laid upon him was greater 
than that which fell to Washington, with equal 
truth he said at another time in the course of his 
journey, "I hold myself, without mock modesty, 
the humblest of all the individuals who have been 
elected President of the United States." No other 
President, probably no chief of state anywhere 
in the civilized world, has risen from the social 
depths in which Lincoln's fortunes were cast by 
the lottery of birth. No other man clothed with 
rule has embodied so completely the innumerable 
race of common men. 

Furthermore, no other President had ever been 
elected with so little known in his favor, with so 
slight a prestige. The country was a stranger 
even to his name five years before. He really had 
been on the national stage less than three years. 
1 he only executive place he ever had held was 
the post-office of New Salem, which he "carried 
in His hat." Since the day when the people were 

172 



GOING TO WASHINGTON 



surprised by the news of his nomination for Presi- 
dent, he had not made a single appearance out- 
side of Springfield, and had not addressed in all 
more than three or four hundred words to the public. 
Naturally the people now watched him with narrow- 
eyed curiosity as he emerged before them. 

His tour lasted nearly two weeks, and included 
stops in the principal cities on the way to Washing- 
ton. All the simple, homely ways of the man were 
caught up and magnified or distorted, for men were 
unused to seeing such a figure as his standing on 
the heights of greatness. 

A little girl had written him, begging him to grow 
a beard, because she thought it would improve 
his appearance. When he came to the town in 
New York where she lived, he called for her, and 
said as he kissed her, "You see, Grace, I have let 
these whiskers grow for you." The incident was 
ridiculed in the press, and one paper carried its 
report of the day under the flippant heading, — 
"Old Abe kissed by a pretty girl." 

The unusual blend of humor and earnestness in 
Lincoln's composition was new to the nation at 
large, and the cartoonist of the principal illustrated 
paper, having read in the daily press that Lincoln 
kept those around him on his travels in a contin- 
ual roar, pictured this life-long foe of intemperance 

r 73 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



as a sot with a whiskey glass in his hand, raising 
a laugh among some drunken loafers who sur- 
rounded him, while near by stood a hearse bearing 
the corpse of the Union. 

The city of New York received him with cold 
disdain. Wall Street was charging the tottering 
government ten and twelve per cent interest; the 
Broadway crowds were silent if not sullen when 
he passed. At the opera, where he appeared in 
black gloves, an amused smile ran round the boxes. 

The hearts of the plain people, however, re- 
sponded to the one clear note which he sounded 
in all his addresses. Everywhere he pleaded for 
the threatened Union, not as a political dogma, nor 
yet as a commercial asset, but as the fairest hope 
that earth held for the masses of mankind. Peace 
was in his mind always, but he aroused much en- 
thusiasm in the Assembly of New jersey, when 
with a good deal of vigor he said, "It may be neces- 
sary to put the foot down firmly." 

The climax of his appeals to patriotism was ap- 
propriately reached when he spoke in Independence 
Hall at Philadelphia, on Washington's birthday. 
" I have never had a feeling politically," he de- 
clared, "that did not spring from the sentiments 
embodied in the Declaration of Independence," 
which he held up as the ideal of an equal chance for 

i74 



GOING TO WASHINGTON 



all men, not here alone, but throughout the world. 
"If it (the Union) cannot be saved without giving 
up that principle, I was about to say I would rather 
be assassinated on this spot than surrender it." 

He was not delivering a prepared speech. He 
had come, as he understood, merely to hoist the 
flag, and, stirred by the great associations of the 
hallowed hall, he spoke out of a full heart. He 
expressed the fear that he might have been betrayed 
by his emotions into saying something indiscreet; 
"but," he added, "I have said nothing that I am 
not willing to live by, and if it be the pleasure of 
Almighty God to die by." 

There was one troublesome point on the route 
of the President-elect's journey. To get to the 
capital he must pass over the soil of Maryland, 
a southern state, and rumors continually came to 
the party that the notorious "plug uglies" of Bal- 
timore were preparing to mob him. Every op- 
portunity would be afforded riotous persons on such 
an occasion, for, in those days, railway cars destined 
for Washington were hauled by horses through the 
streets of Baltimore. Moreover, every other city 
had offered its hospitality to the President-elect, 
but no official invitation had been received from 
the metropolis of this slave state. 

Allan Pinkerton, the noted detective, came to 

i7S 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Lincoln with the story of a plot against him in 
Baltimore, and Seward sent a messenger from 
Washington with similar information. Those in 
his party who were closest to him were consulted. 
On their advice he decided to slip away from Harris- 
burg, where he was at the time, secretly return to 
Philadelphia on a special train, and there board the 
regular night train from New York to Washington. 

He keenly felt the humiliating spectacle which would 
be presented of the chosen chief of the people steal- 
ing into their capital, as he said, "like a thief in 
the night." He appreciated the ridicule which 
the step would bring upon him, not only from the 
South, but from his critics in the North. He de- 
termined, however, to forego the vanity of display- 
ing his personal courage, rather than take the least 
risk of incurring the national calamity which his 
assassination would entail. 

In accordance with the plans made, Lincoln was 
called from the hotel dining room at six o'clock in 
the evening. Most of those who had accompanied 
him from Springfield were not let into the secret. 
He went to his chamber, where he changed to his 
traveling clothes, and where he left his poor wife 
to sob the night away. She begged to be permitted 
to go with him, but it was deemed best that she 
should stay behind. 

176 



GOING TO WASHINGTON 



Coming down from his room with a soft hat in 
his pocket and a shawl over his arm, he stepped 
into the waiting carriage of the Governor of Penn- 
sylvania. A loud order was given to the driver to 
take them to the Governor's mansion, but when 
the carriage was safely away from the hotel, the 
order was changed and they were driven to the 
railway, where the train was in readiness. An 
official secretly climbed a telegraph pole outside 
the city and grounded the wires leading to Baltimore, 
so there would be no chance of any communication 
of the news in that direction. 

At Philadelphia the President-elect entered a 
general sleeping car and went to his section un- 
recognized. Only Pinkerton and one other man 
were with him, the latter a lawyer of giant build 
and courage from the old circuit, Ward H. Lamon, 
who was loaded down with ugly weapons. 

The train passed safely through sleepy and un- 
suspecting Baltimore, and at dawn, when it drew 
into the station at Washington, an Illinois Congress- 
man stood behind a pillar scanning the passengers 
as they came out of their cars. Lincoln and Lamon 
were the last to appear, and, joined by the Congress- 
man, they went into the street, where they hired 
a carriage like any other strangers. At the hotel 
it was some time before the flurried attendants 

N 177 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



could prepare suitable quarters for the unexpected 
guest. 

Meanwhile the anxious and sleepless waiters in 
Harrisburg, who had restored the wires to working 
order at the hour when the train was due to arrive 
at its destination, were relieved by the receipt of 
this cipher message, " Plums delivered nuts safely." 

The startling information that the President-elect 
was in the city quickly spread over waking Wash- 
ington, and was sped on the telegraph to every 
corner of the land. And thus Abraham Lincoln, 
sixteenth President of the United States, entered 
the capital of the republic. 



178 



CHAPTER XX 

THE INAUGURATION 



Washington, a part of the "enemy's country," in no welcoming 
mood toward Lincoln and his party. — The clamor of office 
seekers and the intrigues of leaders filled the air. — The struggle 
of factions to dictate the choice of a cabinet. — "If that slate 
breaks again, it will break at the top." — Seward resigned, 
but Lincoln refused to "let him take the first trick." — Assas- 
sination feared. — The President-elect driven from Willard's 
Hotel to the Capitol, surrounded by soldiers, March 4, 1861. 
— A historic group. — Guarded by rifles and cannon while 
taking the oath. — A melancholy ceremony. — Lincoln's 
earnest and eloquent plea for peace and union. 

Washington received Lincoln in no welcoming 
mood. The Federal city really was in the "enemy's 
country." It was a southern slaveholding com- 
munity which hoped and believed the Northerners 
would soon be driven out by the secessionists, whose 
open emissaries were everywhere, even in places 
of power. 

The new party about to be installed in office 
was a stranger to the people of the city, who were 
mostly Democrats. Their party had administered 
the government for nearly sixty years with slight 
interruption, and there was a feeling that no other 
party was capable of governing the country. Wash- 

179 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



ington, therefore, frowned upon the eager Republican 
office seekers, largely wearing the manners and garb 
of the new West, as they thronged the streets and 
swarmed the Capitol and the hotel lobbies. 

Clamor and intrigue filled the air which the 
President-elect breathed, and a faction fight raged 
around him over the formation of his cabinet. 

It was generally believed that some one of the 
more distinguished Republican leaders, or at least 
some group of experienced politicians, would control 
this new and inexperienced man. Few dreamed 
that it was to be a Lincoln administration. One 
day it looked as if Seward had captured the Presi- 
dent-elect; but the next day the Chase element or 
some other appeared to have gained the upper hand 
of the kindly, simple man who told stories to his 
callers and sent them away without permitting them 
to draw from him a positive opinion on any subject. 

Finally, when an Illinois friend rushed in with 
the rumor that the Seward faction had "broken 
the cabinet slate," Lincoln said firmly, "If that 
slate breaks again, it will break at the top." This 
proved to be true. Seward, whose name was written 
at the top, failed in his effort to dictate other ap- 
pointments, and only two days before the inaugura- 
tion sent the President-elect a letter declining to 
accept the Secretaryship of State. 

1 80 



THE INAUGURATION 



Lincoln made no reply until he was about to go 
to the Capitol to be sworn in. Remarking then to 
his private secretary, "I can't afford to let Seward 
take the first trick," he wrote urging him to accept 
and giving him two days in which to reconsider his 
refusal. In the end, the framework of the cabinet 
stood as he had constructed it in his mind on elec- 
tion night in Springfield. 

On the day of the inauguration, when the White 
House carriage drew up in front of Lincoln's hotel, 
President Buchanan, an old man in an old-fashioned 
swallow-tail coat, hobbled out and into the hotel, 
to reappear a few minutes later with the President- 
elect, who was dressed in a new black suit and a 
shining high hat, and who carried in his hand a 
gold-headed cane. General Scott had closed all 
the liquor saloons in the city and carefully arranged 
his small military force to thwart any attempt at 
assassination and to prevent disorder among the 
thousands of hostile persons in the city, who looked 
with sullen faces on the transfer of the govern- 
ment. 

The presidential carriage moved along Penn- 
sylvania Avenue between double files of cavalry, 
while soldiers marched in front and behind it. 
Groups of riflemen were stationed on various roofs 
which commanded the thoroughfare, watching for 

181 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



the slightest sign of hostility, and cavalrymen 
guarded every approach to the avenue by side 
streets. 

A feeling of relief was manifest in both houses 
of Congress when it was known the journey had 
been made without trouble, and that Lincoln had 
arrived at the Capitol. 

Shortly after twelve o'clock the President and the 
President-elect appeared at the eastern front, in 
the sight of the waiting thousands on the broad 
esplanade. Overhead, ugly derricks hung about 
the yet unfinished dome, while the great bronze 
statue of Freedom still stood on the ground biding 
the time when it should be swung into its lofty place 
above and crown the completed Capitol. A battal- 
ion of soldiers was drawn up near the steps, and from 
the windows, riflemen scanned the scene with vigi- 
lant eyes, while a battery of flying artillery was 
posted in the rear of the crowd. 

As Lincoln stepped to the place where he 
was to be invested with his stupendous respon- 
sibilities to his country and mankind, he was the 
center of a remarkable group of historical char- 
acters. 

\\ ithin reach of his arm stood the President, 
James Buchanan, about to pass into retirement 
after forty years of distinguished public service; 




From the collection of Frederick H. Meserve, Esq., New York City 

The National Capitol in 1861 



THE INAUGURATION 



Roger B. Taney, the learned and venerable Chief- 
justice, from whose Dred Scott decision Lincoln 
had made his successful appeal to the nation; 
Stephen A. Douglas, a witness here to the final 
victory of his life-long rival; John C. Breckinridge, 
another defeated candidate for President in the 
recent contest, who but a few minutes before had 
laid down the gavel of the Vice-president, and who 
ere many months would be in arms against the 
Union; finally, William H. Seward, who was con- 
soling himself for the loss of the Presidency with 
the hope that he might become the master of this 
novice, whom the Chicago Convention had strangely 
preferred to him. 

Still another interesting figure was there, a man 
of striking appearance, who waved his outspread 
hands, and with a peculiar pride in his bearing 
introduced to the people Abraham Lincoln as the 
President-elect of the United States. This was 
E. D. Baker, now a Senator from Oregon, but 
formerly one of that coterie of budding statesmen 
who gathered in front of the open fire in the store 
over which Lincoln slept in the early days of his 
life in Springfield — the ambitious youth who wept 
over the Constitution of the United States when he 
learned from it that a native of England like him- 
self could not aspire to the Presidency. 

183 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



As Lincoln moved forward to begin his address, 
only a faint cheering greeted him from his half- 
unfriendly audience. Removing his brilliant new 
silk hat, he was seeking a resting place for it, when 
Douglas stretched forth his hand and took it and 
held it throughout the ceremony. By this simple 
but dramatic act of courtesy, the Democratic leader 
of the North signalized alike to the friends and to 
the enemies of the Union his readiness to serve and 
sustain the new President in the crisis which con- 
fronted him. 

All the exultant joyousness of an inauguration 
was missing from Lincoln's. Like his childhood, 
like his boyhood, like his young manhood, like his 
love and marriage, his inaugural day must be tinged 
with melancholy and clouded with forebodings of 
evil. Every other President had received his great 
honor from a united country. It came to him 
from a Union torn by discord and broken by seces- 
sion. 

Each of his predecessors could cheer himself 
with the hope that he might have the happy fortune 
to hand down the shield of the nation with an added 
star. With Lincoln, on the contrary, it was a very 
different question. How many stars must he lose 
and how many could he save, was the heart-wracking 
problem with which he grappled as he stood there 

184 



THE INAUGURATION 



on the steps of the Capitol registering in Heaven, 
as he said, a solemn oath to preserve, protect, and 
defend the^Constithtion and the Union. 

Breasting the surging tide of secession, he reasoned 
with the South in a spkkof calmness and fairness. 
Though they might leave the Union, he reminded 
the southern people, the North and the South still 
would have to dwell together, side by side, face to 
face. Physically the sections could not separate; 
no wall could be reared between them. The two 
peoples, he argued, could get along better as fellow- 
citizens bound by the Constitution and the laws, 
than as aliens living together under treaties. He 
implored the discontented not to act in haste. The 
government would not assail them; there could 
be no conflict unless they brought it on. "In your 
hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen," he told 
them, "and not in mine, is the momentous issue 
of civil war." 

One of the most beautiful and eloquent passages 
to be found in the pages of oratory brought to its 
climax this great plea for peace and union : — 

"I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but 
friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion 
may have strained, it must not break our bonds of 
affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretch- 
ing from every battlefield and patriot grave to every 

i85 



\ 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



li\in<i heart and hearth-stone all over this broad 
land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when 
again touched, as surely they will be, by the better 
angels of our nature." 



186 



CHAPTER XXI 

CALLED TO THE HELM IN A STORM 



Seven states in secession, and seven more on the verge of it. — 
The North itself divided. — A month crowded with hopes 
and fears. — The inner Lincoln keeping his own counsel, 
while the outer man in good-humored patience bore with the 
wild scramble for office. — The White House mobbed by place 
hunters. — Charles Francis Adams shocked by the President. 
— Seward convinced of Lincoln's unfitness for his great task, 
boldly proposed, April I, 1861, that the President relinquish 
his powers and responsibilities. — A masterful reply. — The 
Cabinet on March 15 advised the surrender of Fort Sumter, 
but finally, on March 29, agreed with the President that it 
should be provisioned. — Lincoln's sleepless night. — His or- 
ders to General Scott. — Expedition to reenforce Fort Pickens, 
Florida, sailed April 6. — Ships bearing provisions for Fort 
Sumter, South Carolina, sailed from New York April 9. 

With a heavy heart, Lincoln entered the White 
House under an angry sky. Other Presidents have 
lightly stepped across its threshold as to the sun- 
lit summit of their ambition. He had not sought 
it; he never had aspired to it. The Presidency 
came to him, not as a prize to be enjoyed, but as 
a cross to be borne. As Emerson said, he was sent 
to the helm in a tornado. 

The bravest well might shrink from a burden 
such as his. Seven states — South Carolina, Georgia, 

187 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Florida, and Texas 
— had already declared their separation from the 
Union and set up the government of a new repub- 
lic at Montgomery under the Presidency of Jeffer- 
son Davis. 

Their senators and representatives had withdrawn 
from the Congress of the United States. The Fed- 
eral courts had been suspended among them, and the 
stars and stripes hauled down from the flagstaff's 
of the Federal buildings within their borders, while 
officers in the army were daily resigning their com- 
missions to "go with their states," for had they 
not been taujrht from the text-books at West Point 
that secession was right ? Meanwhile seven other 
slave states were wavering between union and dis- 
union. 

Public opinion at the North also was confused 
and divided. No one knew how to compel a state 
by force of arms to stay in the Union, to keep its 
senators and representatives in their seats in Con- 
gress, to provide jurors for the Federal courts, and 
to perform generally its simple duties under the 
national government. All the northern people 
dreaded war, and hesitated to take any step that 
would bring on an armed conflict. 

Lincoln kept his own counsel through all this 
soul-torturing struggle. "I never knew him to 

iSS 



CALLED TO THE HELM IN A STORM 

ask advice about anything," an associate on the 
old circuit has said, and now in meeting the gravest 
responsibility that ever fell to a President, he relied 
on his own sense of right and duty. 

Again, as in every hour of trial, the inner Lincoln 
walked alone; the outer man good-naturedly shuffled 
along through the routine of the day's work as if 
free from any heavier care. When Senator Sherman 
introduced his brother, William T., who had lately 
resigned as military instructor in a Louisiana college 
and who was full of the news of the preparation for 
war which the South was making, the latter was 
amazed by Lincoln's flippant reply, "Oh, well! 
I guess we'll manage to keep house and get 
along without you soldier-fellows." How much the 
President was deluding himself with false hopes of 
peace, and how much he was disguising his fears 
of war, his callers could not tell. 

He listened with smiling patience to the stories 
of the petty ambitions of office seekers, and turned 
away senators and representatives hungry for patron- 
age, with homely jokes aptly applied to the case 
of each. The country never has seen such another 
ugly scramble for spoils as raged then when the 
nation was in its death throes. "I am like a man," 
Lincoln said, "who is busy letting rooms in one end 
of his house while the other end is afire." 

189 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



The prize of public office was now within reach 
of the Republicans for the first time, and they lost 
their heads in a wild stampede for the loaves and 
fishes. "The grounds, halls, stairways, and closets 
of the White House," Seward said in a letter to his 
wife, "are filled with applicants." One long line 
moved in as another long line moved out. They 
swaggered about the house with the air of proprie- 
torship, and threatened the doorkeepers who tried 
to restrain them. 

Whenever the door to Lincoln's room opened 
for a second, they rushed toward it merely to catch 
a glimpse of him. As the place was then arranged, 
the President could not pass from his office to the 
dining room or to his sleeping chamber without 
forcing his way through this noisy, jostling crowd. 
To get a drink of water, he must expose himself 
to their clamor. Watching for these chances, the 
importunate regularly waylaid him, stuffing their 
applications and indorsements in his hand, or whis- 
pering their wants in his ear as he indulgently 
paused and inclined his head. 

When, in order to get a breath of fresh air, he 
went to drive with Mrs. Lincoln, men ran out to his 
carriage and tossed their papers in his lap. Even as 
he was walking in the street, he was stopped by 
a job hunter. "No, no," Lincoln said with a wave 

190 



CALLED TO THE HELM IN A STORM 

of his hand, "I won't open shop here." He com- 
plained to a friend of the hunger for office which 
afflicted mankind, but with his inveterate sense of 
humor and fairness, he admitted he himself was not 
exempt from this appetite. 

He was always practical. He knew how men were 
reached, and he felt it would strengthen him and his 
new administration to satisfy this appetite for place 
as well as he could. He bore it as a duty, with a 
cheerfulness that was severely taxed, but which 
seldom failed. 

One day Secretary Seward took Charles Francis 
Adams, the newly appointed minister to England, 
to see the President. Adams was about to leave 
on his important mission to London, and was 
anxious to receive his instructions. As he sat in 
the White House, there came to his mind the im- 
posing dignity of his father's figure, when John 
Quincy Adams presided over the mansion, and 
while his thought was dwelling upon it, Lincoln, 
"a tall, large-featured, shabbily dressed man, of 
uncouth appearance, slouched into the room," 
his "much-kneed, ill-fitting trousers, coarse stock- 
ings, and worn slippers" at once catching the exact- 
ing eye of the descendant of two Presidents. 

Recovering from the shock as well as he could, 
the Minister politely thanked the President for the 

191 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



honor he had done him in selecting him for a post 
so delicate. Lincoln acknowledged his thanks care- 
lessly, and then, stretching out his legs and clasping 
his hands behind his head, he dropped Adams 
from his attention, and said to Seward, "Well, 
Governor, I've this morning decided that Chicago 
post-office appointment." 

An Adams was no more to Lincoln than any 
other son of Adam. In his native, unaffected 
democracy he could not feel an awe or a reverence 
for any human being, however high his station or 
however long his lineage. It was not his habit to 
look up at one man and look down upon another. 
He saw all men, the honored and the unhonored, 
the rich and the poor, on a common level with 
himself. 

As for attempting to instruct the Minister to 
England in his duties as a diplomat, or discussing 
the possible future relations between this country 
and Great Britain, he would not cross the Atlantic 
Ocean until he came to it. Adams, therefore, went 
out from his presence for the last time, to carry 
with him through all his trials at the British capital 
and even to his grave, the impression of an ill- 
dressed, ignorant chief, without a soul above office 
seekers. 

As the members of his Cabinet and other leaders 

192 



CALLED TO THE HELM IN A STORM 

came and went, watching and measuring the simple- 
mannered President with no official airs about him, 
standing up under all this pulling and hauling as 
if he enjoyed it, they were puzzled if not disheartened 
by the sight. They saw the chieftain of the dis- 
membered Union, in whose hands the life of the 
nation lay, and upon whom the searching eye of 
Europe rested, laughing and jesting as he parceled 
out post-offices, seemingly without a thought for 
anything except these trifles. 

Among them Lincoln did not have one old friend, 
one man who had known him a year before. For 
the purpose of consolidating his party, he had ap- 
pointed all his rivals for the nomination in the 
Chicago Convention, and had not reserved for him- 
self even one personal selection. The conviction 
grew among these strangers at his council table 
that some one else than Lincoln must save the 
Union. 

Seward, as the head of the Cabinet and as the 
great leader of his party, was emboldened to take 
upon himself the task which he felt his chief was 
slighting. After four weeks he submitted to him 
in writing a proposal such as no other President 
in history has had the humiliation to receive. 

In this elaborate paper the Secretary of State 
calmly announced to Lincoln that the administra- 

o 193 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



tion had drifted without a policy until its negligence 
had become a scandal and a peril. He broadly 
hinted, therefore, that the President should turn the 
entire matter over to him, and that he be permitted 
to evacuate Fort Sumter, adopt a vigorous foreign 
policy, demand explanations from Great Britain 
and Russia, send agents into Canada, Mexico, and 
Central America to rouse them against Europe, and 
finally to get up a war with France and Spain 
if the governments of those two countries refused 
to apologize for things they were supposed to be 
doing in violation of the Monroe Doctrine. By 
these means it was hoped that the slavery question 
would be obscured, and the South in its awakened 
patriotism would join with the North in fighting 
foreign foes. 

Lincoln met this extraordinary situation like 
a strong man. He realized that his Cabinet was in 
danger of going to pieces, and that the resignation 
of his leading adviser would cause a heavy loss in 
public confidence. Without the least show of 
wounded feelings, without betraying the slightest 
passion, he brushed aside Seward's proposals with 
a firm yet gentle hand. He wrote to him at once, 
pointing out briefly and calmly that he had steadily 
followed the course laid down in his inaugural, 
and he added in a tone of quiet, confident command 

194 



CALLED TO THE HELM IN A STORM 

that whatever was to be done by the administration, 
"I must do it," and "upon points arising in its 
progress I wish and suppose I am entitled to have 
the advice of all the Cabinet." 

Seward had made the test, no doubt with motives 
entirely patriotic, and had found his master, whom 
he thenceforth served with a generous loyalty that 
knew no shade of turning. " Executive force and 
vigor," he wrote to his wife only a few weeks after- 
ward, "are rare qualities. The President is the 
best of us." 

When Lincoln was inaugurated, the flag of the 
Union was still flying above Fort Sumter in the 
harbor of Charleston, but under the guns of a Con- 
federate battery which had been set up on the shore. 
He came to his desk after his first night in the White 
House, to find lying upon it a report that the loyal 
garrison of soldiers who were maintaining the flag 
had food for only a limited number of days. 

He sent for Lieutenant-general Scott, who shook 
his head sadly and said that the little band of de- 
fenders must surrender. To send them provisions 
through Charleston, an army of twenty thousand 
men would be required to fight their way. To 
provision them by sea was impracticable. 

This was the awful choice presented to the Presi- 
dent. He must haul down the flag and abandon 

i95 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



before the world the seven seceded states, or call 
the nation to arms in a civil war. If the sentiment 
of the North was not ready to resort to force, the 
sentiment of the southern states which clung to the 
Union was unanimously opposed to such a measure. 
Any blow struck at the South, it was feared, would 
unite all the states of that section in a common 
defence. 

Lincoln submitted the question to his cabinet, 
the gravest ever presented to that body, and nearly 
all its members advised him to give up Fort Sumter. 
Only one among them recommended that an effort 
be made to provision it. The President himself 
felt that to order its evacuation would be " utterly 
ruinous" and that "it would be our national 
destruction consummated." 

Almost alone, however, he could only grope along 
his course. He did not know the way, and there 
seemed to be no one who could tell him. Day 
after day he anxiously discussed the subject with 
officers of the army and the navy. On every hand 
there was irresolution. 

Finally, General Scott counseled him to give up 
still another fort, which was situated on the coast 
of Florida. This filled him with concern. "Lin- 
coln's eyes did not close in sleep that night," his 
secretaries, Nicolay and Hay, have recorded in their 

196 



CALLED TO THE HELM IN A STORM 

history. He watched by the rended Union, his 
precious charge, in its mortal crisis as the shadow 
of dissolution lay upon it. The morning found him 
fixed in his determination to save it. 

Several of his cabinet, appalled by the added 
sacrifice which they were called upon to make, 
turned from their yielding mood and strengthened 
his hands to resist the surrender of the forts. The 
plans which he had been debating for provisioning 
Sumter were vigorously pushed, and at the same 
time he ordered General Scott to despatch a suffi- 
cient force to defend the Florida fort. 

"Sir," the old-fashioned soldier replied, as he 
rose and stood erect, "the great Frederick used to 
say, 'When the king commands, all things are 
possible.' It shall be done." 



197 



CHAPTER XXII 

AND THE WAR CAME 



Fort Sumter fired on, April 12, 1861, and surrendered to the Con- 
federates, April 14. — The North awakened by the assault on 
the flag. — Douglas standing for the Union beside his old-time 
rival. — Lincoln's call for an extra session of Congress and 
75,000 volunteers, April 15. — A quick response from the free 
states. — Lincoln's offer of the command of the Union army 
to Robert E. Lee, April 18. — Resignation of southern army 
officers. — The Sixth Massachusetts Regiment mobbed in the 
streets of Baltimore, April 19. — Washington cutoff and in peril. 
— Lincoln's anxious week, waiting for the defenders of the 
capital. — Dependent on untried officials. — His first diplo- 
matic experience. — Revising Seward's imprudent despatch 
to London, May 21. — Death of Douglas, June 3. — The two 
armies in their first battle at Bull Run, July 21. — The rout of 
the Union forces. — Lincoln's calmness and courage. 

"Both parties deprecated war; but one of them 
would make war rather than let the nation survive; 
and the other would accept war rather than let it 
perish. And the war came." — Abraham Lincoln. 

The shell from the Confederate battery at Charles- 
ton which tore a path of fire across the gray sky 
of an April dawn, marked the opening scene in the 
tragedy of the great war between the states. Wild 
cheers rang from the crowded shore, and when the 
earliest rays of the sun gleamed on the folds of 

198 



"AND THE WAR CAME" 



Sumter's flag, there was not a friendly eye to greet 
it from the mainland. Out at the mouth of the 
harbor the two relief ships which Lincoln had 
despatched with food, stood helpless spectators 
of the one-sided duel, having arrived too late to 
succor the one hundred and twenty-eight men of 
the devoted garrison. Their coming had been but 
the signal for the attack. 

All through the hours of that evil Friday, the 
guns of Charleston rained their hissing iron upon 
the island fort, and the startling echoes of their 
sullen boom rolled over the land. The hesitant 
North sprang to its feet with clenched fists. The 
people of the free states felt that their efforts to avoid 
a fight had been mistaken for cowardice. 

Parties and factions were fused in a fiery glow 
of patriotism. Argument was hushed; doctrines 
and dogmas were forgotten. The sordid calcula- 
tions of trade were banished from mind. Men for 
the first time learned from their quickened heart- 
beats how precious to them was the imperiled 
Union. The flag now assailed, was drawn from 
its long neglect and unfurled by loyal hands from 
thousands of windows. The nation awoke. 

In Washington, the leaders swarmed to the White 
House and were steadied by Lincoln's coolness. 
They found him grave, but not cast down. With- 

199 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



out bluster or boastfulness, he was confidently 
turning to the need of the hour. The cabinet met, 
and, like the North, it was no longer divided, although 
its members did not agree as to the seriousness of 
the situation. Seward predicted the trouble would 
all be over in three months. 

For two days the bombardment of Sumter con- 
tinued, and then while the fort was in flames, its 
gallant commander sadly capitulated. With the 
honors of war, he was permitted to march his men 
out on Sunday and embark them on one of the 
relief ships. 

Douglas went to the White House Sunday even- 
ing and was with Lincoln two hours. He read the 
proclamation which the President had prepared 
for publication on Monday, convoking Congress 
in extra session on the fourth of July, and calling 
into the army seventy-five thousand volunteers. His 
only objection to it, he said, was that it did not 
call for two hundred thousand men. The press 
of the country the next morning printed Lincoln's 
proclamation and Douglas's pledge of support side 
by side. As a still further service to the Union, 
the loyal leader of the northern democracy went 
at once to Illinois, delivering patriotic speeches on 
the way. 

The two houses of the Legislature met together 

200 



"AND THE WAR CAME" 



at Springfield to receive his counsel. "There can be 
no neutrals in this war; only patriots and traitors," 
was the inspiring watchword which he sounded, 
while the veins of his neck and forehead swelled 
with the passion that possessed him. He labored 
on in the cause until sickness overtook him. As he 
lay dying in his home in Chicago, the air was vibrant 
with the footfalls of his old-time followers, responding 
to his last appeal and marching forth to the defence 
of the nation under the leadership of Lincoln. 

The North eagerly met the President's call. In 
twenty-four hours a Massachusetts regiment was 
at the doors of Faneuil Hall, and in forty-eight 
hours the men of the Old Bay State, which was 
first in the Revolution, were in the van of the host 
that hastened to the rescue of the capital. The 
drum-beat of the Union resounded from every village 
green. Warriors thronged the paths of peace. 
Women wept and prayed and worked for their 
country's defenders. 

The great wave of emotion for the Union, however, 
beat against the Mason and Dixon line as upon 
a foreign shore. Not one of the slave states obeyed 
the call. The Governor of Delaware, while refus- 
ing to organize and forward any troops, did yield to 
the President's proclamation so far as to suggest 
that those who wished to volunteer might offer their 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



services directly to the Federal government. Mary- 
land demanded that no Union soldiers be brought 
across her soil. 

The Governor of Lincoln's native state replied, 
" Kentucky will furnish no troops for the wicked 
purpose of subduing her sister southern states," 
while the Governor of Missouri declared to the 
President, "Not one man will Missouri furnish to 
carry on such an unholy crusade." 

All the states farther south rushed into the Con- 
federacy, until its flag was entitled to bear eleven 
stars in its union of blue, and Jefferson Davis's Secre- 
tary of War boasted it would wave over the Capitol 
at Washington in a few weeks. A full third of the 
officers of the regular army and half of the officers 
of the navy went with the South. Notable among 
the soldiers lost by this defection were Robert E. 
Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, Albert Sidney Johnston, 
Jubal A. Early, Pemberton, A. P. Stewart, Braxton 
Bragg, Pickett, Beauregard, J. E. B. Stuart, A. P. 
Hill, and Joseph Wheeler. 

Men like these were of the flower of the army. 
Lee was marked out by General Scott to command 
the Union forces. He sat by the lofty columns of the 
portico of his Arlington home, with the walls of the 
Capitol and the yet unfinished shaft of marble reared 
to the memory of Washington, the greatest of the Vir- 

202 



"AND THE WAR CAME" 



ginians, before his eyes, while his undoubted love for 
the Union and his dread of drawing his sword against 
his native state painfully struggled for the mastery. 
Virginia won him. He resigned from the army and 
offered his services to the Governor at Richmond. 

Not all saw their duty in the same light. Scott, 
Thomas, and Farragut were among the Southerners 
who stood at their posts against every temptation. 
When the offer to make him the commander of her 
troops came to Scott from Virginia, the state in 
which he was born, the old general replied, "I have 
served my country under the flag of the Union for 
more than fifty years, and as long as God permits 
me to live, I will defend that flag with my sword, 
even if my own native state assails it." 

Lincoln took special pride in the report that not 
a private in the little army of sixteen thousand 
regulars forsook the colors. This force was so 
widely scattered, however, as to be of little use in 
the opening days of the war, when there were not 
soldiers enough in Washington to form a safe body- 
guard for the President in the White House, which 
stood on southern soil and only across the Potomac 
River from the Confederate state of Virginia. When 
Sumter was fired on, all except six hundred soldiers 
of the regular army were guarding the distant frontier 
from the Indians. 

203 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Even before open hostilities began, double sentries 
were placed in the shrubbery of the White House 
grounds at night, and a small guard camped in the 
basement of the mansion. With the fall of Sumter, 
the capital was in dire need of defenders. There 
was gathered in Charleston alone a Confederate 
army which could be transported to Washington by 
rail in two days, and which was quite strong enough 
to seize the city. The volunteers in the eastern 
states, therefore, were despatched to the defence 
of the capital. 

Washington was connected with the North by 
only one line of railway, running through Mary- 
land. While a Massachusetts regiment was crossing 
Baltimore in cars drawn by horses, as the custom 
was at that time, the rails were torn up by a mob of 
blacks as well as whites, lashed to fury by the sight 
of the "Yankee invaders." There, on the anni- 
versary of the battle of Lexington, the blood of 
Massachusetts was shed on the cobblestones of 
the city street, and when the command reached 
Washington in the evening, it marched to the Capitol 
followed by a line of stretchers bearing its wounded. 

To prevent the coming of any more troop trains 
to Baltimore, railway bridges were destroyed above 
that city, and Washington was cut off from the 
North. Baltimoreans came in delegations to insist 

204 



'AND THE WAR CAME" 



that no soldiers be brought across Maryland. "I 
must have troops to defend this capital," Lincoln 
reasoned with them; "geographically it lies sur- 
rounded by the soil of Maryland, and mathematically 
the necessity exists that they should come over her 
territory. Our men are not moles and cannot 
dig under the earth; they are not birds, and cannot 
fly through the air. There is no way but to march 
them across, and that they must do." 

Through an anxious week, Lincoln waited for 
troops. "Why don't they come? Why don't they 
come?" he was heard to ask himself as he walked 
his office floor. "I beo-in to believe there is no 

O 

North," he said to some men of the Massachusetts 
regiment. New York mails were three days in com- 
ing through. Even telegraphic communication was 
interrupted at times. The wildest rumors gained 
currency. Wagons moved through the streets, laden 
with the baggage and furniture of fleeing families. 
Mrs. Lincoln was urged to take her children and join 
in the flight, but she clung to her husband, protesting, 
"I shall never leave him here alone." 

General Scott prepared to defend the place, 
point by point. The public buildings were barri- 
caded. At every door of the Capitol, cement barrels, 
sand-bags, and heaps of iron were piled ten feet high. 
Office seekers found better use for their time than 

205 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



haunting the anterooms. They were armed with 
muskets, revolvers, knives, and clubs, and a band 
of them camped in the great East Room of the 
White House, sleeping on the velvet carpet. 

Famine menaced the city. The surrounding 
country had been well-nigh stripped of provisions, 
and the government seized a large quantity of flour 
in storage at a mill. After trying delays the sol- 
diers began to arrive, however, by way of Annapolis, 
and soon nearly twenty thousand armed men were 
assembled. Washington was safe. 

The new administration struggled beneath a 
tremendous burden. The Republican party was 
unused to power. Its leaders had been trained 
almost wholly in opposition. Lincoln, who was 
not accustomed to having even an office clerk under 
him, suddenly found himself charged with the task 
of organizing, equipping, and commanding an im- 
mense army. 

Congress was not in session. The members of 
the cabinet were mere apprentices in their several 
branches; clerks resigned by the hundreds, and most 
of the experienced chiefs of bureaus had gone with 
the South. Seward was innocent of diplomacy. 
Chase, at the head of the Treasury, was a novice in 
finance. Welles, the Secretary of the Navy, was ig- 
norant of naval affairs, and Cameron, the Secretary 

206 



''AND THE WAR CAME" 



of War, knew nothing of military matters. All were 
obliged to learn the very primer of their novel duties 
in the face of an enemy which had chosen specially 
trained men to lead it forward. 

The army, badly crippled by the resignations 
of many able officers, was under the command of 
Lieutenant-general Scott, a veteran of the War of 
1812 and of the war with Mexico, who at seventy-five 
still retained a stalwart spirit, but whose intellect 
was enfeebled by age and long service. The Adju- 
tant-general had transferred himself to the same 
office in the hostile army. The younger men who 
were to captain the armies of the Union were yet 
in obscurity. Lincoln could only employ such tal- 
ent as he found about him, and strive to inspire 
the slow-going and the timid with his own spirit 
of courage and activity. 

The free states, however, fairly overwhelmed the 
government with their generosity in enlisting sol- 
diers. Arms must be found for them and uni- 
forms manufactured. Above all, money had to be 
raised, and the national credit never was so low. 
Chase threatened the reluctant bankers that if they 
did not accept the bonds which he was issuing, 
he would flood the country with circulating notes, 
even if it should take a thousand dollars of such 
currency to buy a breakfast. 

207 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Lincoln took a direct and active interest in all 
the military details, so unfamiliar to him. He 
soon found that he could not leave them wholly to 
others. He was impatient of the red tape which 
entangled his feet at every step. If he asked for 
a report on a subject, it would be so long and com- 
plicated as to be of no use to him. "When I send 
a man to buy a horse," he said one day as he glanced 
at such a report, "I don't wish him to tell me how 
many hairs he has in his tail; I wish to know only 
his points." 

He felt obliged personally to go into many matters 
which he would have preferred to leave to trained 
and competent subordinates. He even tested vari- 
ous kinds of rifles, which were offered for sale to the 
government. Several times he went to the grounds 
back of the White House and fired the weapons 
at a target, usually a little piece of paper which he 
had pinned to a tree, eighty or a hundred paces away. 
Once when dissatisfied with the result, he whittled a 
small wooden sight and adjusted it over the carbine, 
after which he shot two rounds, scoring a dozen 
hits in fourteen shots. 

The recollection of his only martial experience 
was brought to mind in an interesting way one day 
when Major Anderson called at the White House. 
Lincoln thanked the Major for his defence of Fort 

20S 



AND THE WAR CAME" 



Sumter and then asked, "Major, do you remember 
ever meeting me before?" "No, Mr. President," 
the Major replied with some surprise, for he was 
quite sure he never had seen Lincoln until then. 
" My memory is better than yours," the President 
said with an amused look; "you mustered me into 
the service of the United States in 1832, at Dixon's 
Ferry, in the Black Hawk War." 

Troubles abroad were added to the troubles at 
home. Great Britain hastened to lead the nations 
of Europe in conceding to the Confederacy the 
rights of a belligerent power. The royal proclama- 
tion to this effect was issued on the day that Charles 
Francis Adams, the new Minister of the United 
States, arrived in London. When the news reached 
Washington, Seward at once prepared a long and, 
on the whole, an able protest, in the course of 
which, however, he reminded the British that the 
Americans had whipped them in two wars, and 
were ready to fight them again, and, if need be, two 
or three other European nations at one and the 
same time. 

He proposed to send this extraordinary paper to 
Adams, and have him read its offensive language 
to the British Minister of Foreign Affairs. In ac- 
cordance with custom he took it to the President, 
and read it to him. The latter at once saw the 
p 209 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



grave mistake which his Secretary of State had made, 
and he requested him to leave the document. 

It was Lincoln's first experience in international 
diplomacy, but Adams probably was spared the hu- 
miliation of receiving his passports from the London 
ministry and a ruinous foreign war was averted by 
the alterations which this country lawyer made in 
Seward's despatch. Drawing his pen through a few 
words here and there, selecting a softer term now 
and then, and marking "omit this" opposite some 
aggressive passage, he stripped the communication 
of all harm, without impairing its strength. 

Finally, he expressly instructed the American 
Minister, instead of reading it to the British Secretary, 
to hold it entirely for his own guidance. On an 
occasion such as this, Lincoln's level head and 
native common sense availed more for the cause of 
the Union than the theories and speculations of 
a trained man who had pursued statesmanship as 
an art or a profession. 

Although the volunteers continued to pour into 
Washington, the outposts of the Confederacy drew 
nearer and nearer, and Lincoln gazed lono; and often 
through a White House telescope at the Confeder- 
ate flag which floated above the city of Alexandria, 
across the Potomac in Virginia. 

The Confederate capital had been established 



"AND THE WAR CAME ; 



at Richmond, only a little more than one hundred 
miles away, and "On to Richmond" was the pas- 
sionate watchword which resounded throughout 
the North with increasing volume. An influential 
Republican journal in New York loudly demanded 
the resignation of the cabinet, and held over the 
President the threat that he himself might be su- 
perseded unless the war were pushed more vigor- 
ously. 

When Congress met on the fourth of July, it 
found more than three hundred thousand troops 
enrolled under the stars and stripes, and Lincoln 
ready to give full account of his stewardship through 
four momentous months. He recounted in his mes- 
sage the great perils which he had been called 
upon to meet. "As a private citizen," he said, 
"the executive could not have consented that these 
institutions shall perish; much less could he, in 
betrayal of so vast and so sacred a trust as the free 
people have confided to him." 

With peculiar pride, this man of the common people 
pointed to the volunteer army which he had as- 
sembled, "without a soldier in it but who has taken 
his place there of his own free choice," while in his 
democratic soul he exulted that there was hardly 
a regiment "from which there could not be selected 
a President, a cabinet, a Congress, and perhaps 

211 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



a court, abundantly able to administer the govern- 
ment." 

Congress readily authorized an army of half a 
million men and four hundred millions of dollars 
with which to support it. The senators and represen- 
tatives echoed and enforced the national cry for a 
forward movement, and the forces then encamped 
upon the Virginia hills overlooking the capital were 
started southward. 

At Manassas, thirty-two miles from Washington, 
they encountered a Confederate army, and the battle 
of Bull Run was fought. In the heat of a July 
Sunday, the men of the North and the South 
grappled for the first time, moiling their bright, 
new uniforms of blue and gray in the heavy dust 
of the parched earth. 

Civilians in Congress and in the departments were 
so confident of an easy victory for the North, they 
hastened to the scene of the expected conflict as if 
to a monster picnic, eager to speed the soldiers on in 
their holiday march to Richmond. From the Con- 
federate capital, too, spectators flocked to the theater 
of war, and Jefferson Davis could not repress a sigh 
as he looked across the lines and saw waving on the 
other side the flag under which he had been reared 
at West Point, and which he had followed on the 
plains of the West and on the fields of Mexico. 

212 



"AND THE WAR CAME" 



Lincoln hid his anxiety as he could, while he 
waited for the outcome. He went to church in 
the morning. In the early afternoon, rumors of 
all kinds flew about. When he called on General 
Scott at three o'clock, he found the aged soldier 
asleep in his office. The General woke up suffi- 
ciently to express his confidence in the result, and 
fell asleep again as the President left. Definite 
news of a great Union success came later, and 
Lincoln went for a drive. 

At six o'clock, Seward hurried to the White House 
and excitedly asked for the President. "The battle 
is lost," he exclaimed in a hoarse whisper. General 
McDowell was in full retreat, and calling on General 
Scott to save the capital. Lincoln returned in a 
few minutes and heard in silence the report of the 
disaster. Without saying a word or betraying by 
look any disappointment, he turned from the door 
of the White House and went to the War Department. 

As the fleeing fugitives from the scene of defeat 
straggled breathlessly into the city toward mid- 
night, Lincoln, stretched on the lounge in the cabinet 
room, received the wild reports of the rout and 
of the probable capture of Washington. No one 
realized that in the clash of two green armies, the 
victors were almost as completely overcome by 
surprise as were the vanquished themselves. The 

213 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Confederates, content to hold the ground from 
which they had driven the Federals, made no for- 
ward movement on the capital. 

When morning came, Lincoln still lay on the 
lounge, listening and making notes, for he had neither 
gone to bed nor slept. All day Monday, under the 
gloom of a rainy sky, the beaten and demoralized 
troops waded through the muddy streets. The 
North w r as humiliated and embittered. The con- 
fusion threatened to run into chaos. 

Lincoln showed no sign of wavering in the furious 
storm. On the contrary, those who watched him 
were inspired when they saw beneath the sadness 
which enveloped him like a cloud, an added strength 
of purpose, a deeper determination. He was learn- 
ing, side by side with the people, the awful price 
which must be paid for the salvation of the Union. 



214 



CHAPTER XXIII 

IN THE GLOOM OF DEFEAT 



George B. McClellan appointed to the command of the Army of 
the Potomac, July 27, 1861. — The armies costing $2,000,000 
a day with no battles won. — The seizure of Mason and Slidell, 
November 8, 1861, brought threats of war from the British. — 
Victoria and Lincoln working together for peace. — Great 
success of Lincoln's statesmanship in winning the border states. 
— Stanton called to the Cabinet, January 13, 1862. — Grant's 
capture of Fort Donelson, February 16. — The Merrimack 
sank the Cumberland in Hampton Roads, March 8. — Alarm 
in the North. — The victory of the Monitor, March 9. — Lincoln's 
simple faith. — Farragut captured New Orleans, April 25. — 
McClellan's unsuccessful Peninsular Campaign against Rich- 
mond, March 17 to July 2. — Second defeat at Bull Run, 
August 30. — Victory at Antietam, September 16-17. — 
Emancipation Proclamation, September 22. — The winter of 
1 862-1 863 the darkest since Valley Forge. — A movement 
to force Lincoln to resign. — The disasters of Fredericksburg, 
December 13, 1862, and Chancellorsville, May 2-4, 1863. — 
Lincoln's courage. — Lee's invasion of the North. 

Lincoln wasted no time in fighting over again 
a battle that was lost. He offered no defence for 
himself, and found no fault with others. To cheer 
the disheartened soldiers of Bull Run, he went 
among them in their camps as if they had won a 
victory, and no officer heard a word of complaint 
from his lips. 

215 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



There were those in the North who were so dis- 
mayed by the retreat, that they lost all faith in the suc- 
cess of the Union. Horace Greeley wrote to Lincoln 
in despair. "You are not considered a great man," 
he frankly said, "and I am a hopelessly broken one," 
and he called upon the President to sacrifice him- 
self "if the Union is irrevocably gone," and give 
up the needless struggle. Counsels like these, 
while they did not seem to weaken the purpose of 
Lincoln, must have heavily taxed his fortitude. 

Men who pressed about him with conflicting 
advice, found him not thinking of the past, but of 
the future. The very day after Bull Run, on the 
advice of General Scott and with the enthusiastic 
approval of the country, he appointed George B. 
McClellan to the command of the routed army. 

McClellan was a brilliant engineer graduate of 
West Point, who had resigned a railway presidency 
and surrendered a salary of ten thousand dollars 
to enter the military service at the outbreak of the 
war. In a series of skirmishes, he had driven scat- 
tered bands of Confederates out of the mountains 
of western Virginia, and secured that region to the 
Union. 

Although, before this brief campaign, he never 
had commanded more than a company of men, 
or held higher rank than captain, he came to the 

216 




From the collection of H. \V. Fay, Esq., 1)'- Kalb, 111. 

A Portrait of Lincoln 

Made in his first year in the White House 



IN THE GLOOM OF DEFEAT 

head of the Army of the Potomac, at the age of 
thirty-four, with the prestige of the only success 
yet won by Union arms and with the admiring 
confidence of the public. Hailed as the "Young 
Napoleon," his martial portrait was almost wor- 
shipped in the homes of the people. The p p lar 
faith in the youthful hero of the hour was shared 
by Lincoln, and President and cabinet and senators 
paid deference to him. 

His camps became the principal social attraction 
of the capital, and at a grand review, with Lincoln 
mounted beside him, he proudly rode down the lines 
of fifty thousand soldierly troops, to the thunder of 
artillery, the roll of drums, the blaring of bugles, 
and the waving of standards. Displaying a genius 
for order, he had knit the mob of raw recruits into 
a compact and imposing army; officering, arming, 
uniforming, and drilling it in accordance with the 
highest military standard. At the same time, his 
engineering skill was employed in behalf of the de- 
fence of Washington until he had thrown around 
the city a chain of forty well-placed forts. 

Here, however, his ardor and his ability seemed 
to halt. The enemy, facing him from behind its 
intrenchments at Manassas, did not tempt him to 
a forward movement. Dizzied by his sudden eleva- 
tion to the heights of fame, he grew deaf to advice 

217 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



and impatient with advisers. He ignored Scott, 
and sneered at Lincoln. Nevertheless, he had 
done such good work as an organizer, and was so 
strong in the affections of his army, that the President 
stood by him in the face of a violent reaction from 
the hero-worshipping of a short while before. The 
public mind became restless as months of inac- 
tivity went by, and the once proud report, "All 
quiet on the Potomac," passed into a jest and a 
byword. 

Congress met in the winter under lowering clouds. 
The war was costing two millions a day, the public 
debt was piling up, and not a battle had been won. 
Secretary Chase was at the end of his resources 
in the money markets of the cities. His next 
resort was the issuance of paper money, "green- 
backs," as they came to be known. 

The nation, sorely distracted within, was beset 
without by foreign menace. Great Britain, France, 
and Spain invaded Mexico in seeming contempt of 
the Monroe Doctrine. It was feared their next 
step would be the recognition of the Confederacy 
as an established and independent nation, and 
possibly their forcible intervention between the 
North and the South. A cotton famine threatened 
England, by reason of the blockade of southern 
ports, which the navy of the Union had effected. 

218 



IN THE GLOOM OF DEFEAT 

English mills were closed and thousands of English 
working people were in dire distress. 

In the midst of this perilous international situa- 
tion, a naval vessel of the United States overhauled 
the British mail steamer Trent, on the high seas, 
and took from her Messrs. Mason and Slidell, who 
were bound on a foreign mission for the Confederate 
government. The North seized upon the incident 
as a subject for wild rejoicing. When the captives 
were landed in Boston, the city banqueted their 
captor, who also received the congratulations of 
the Secretary of the Navy and the thanks of Con- 
gress. 

The British government was aflame with indigna- 
tion and started troops to Canada, while the ministers 
of the Queen framed an ugly communication to the 
government at Washington. Happily Victoria was 
a lover of peace. She and her Prince Consort gave 
their anxious attention to softening the despatch. 
This noble and important act of statesmanship was 
the last public duty which the Prince performed, 
and some have attributed his death, which quickly 
followed, to the heavy strain of the crisis arising 
from the Trent case. 

It was equally fortunate that the American chief 
of state kept a cool head in this period, when states- 
men and people joined in twisting the tail of the 

219 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



then very unpopular British lion. Neither Lincoln 
nor Seward had shared in the national enthusiasm 
over the unauthorized act of a naval captain in 
firing across the bow of a neutral vessel on the high 
seas and searching her. As the public exultation 
died away, they united in the ungrateful task of 
mending a bad case. 

The Secretary of State wrote a skilful and sat- 
isfactory reply. He conceded, in cheerful terms, 
the justness of the British complaint, and grace- 
fully disavowed the seizure, proudly reminding the 
British that he welcomed an opportunity thus to 
establish the historical position of the United States 
— a principle which it had upheld throughout the 
existence of the nation and against even Great 
Britain herself. 

The allusion to the American contention in the 
War of 1 8 12 was not lost on public opinion in either 
country. Accompanied by the grumblings of a 
sorely tried people, the Confederate commissioners 
were surrendered, and the terrifying shadow of 
a foreign war was dispelled. 

In the general disappointment over the lack of 
military success, few took account of a great and far- 
reaching victory which Lincoln, virtually without 
bloodshed, had quietly won in the border states. 
He had slowly brought to the support of the Union 



IN THE GLOOM OF DEFEAT 

the slave states of Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, 
and Missouri, laid the foundations of the new and 
loyal state of West Virginia, and encouraged the 
patriotism of the brave dwellers in the mountains 
of eastern Tennessee. 

Himself bone of their bone and flesh of their 
flesh, he had led the people of the border, step by 
step, into the path of loyalty. It is doubtful if 
any other leader in the North was fitted to work 
with them and solve this delicate and vital problem. 
Lincoln was no "Yankee" in their eyes. In their 
peculiar clannishness, they felt he was one of them. 
He thought with them, and patiently moved with 
them, his hand on their pulse, as he cautiously felt 
his way to the final goal. 

When the Baltimoreans raged against the passage 
of troops through their city, he brought his recruits 
to Washington by way of Annapolis. When Ken- 
tucky resented the northern soldier as an invader, 
he sent Anderson, a gallant Kentuckian and the 
defender of Fort Sumter, to take command in that 
state. When the radical Republicans of the North 
clamored for the summary abolition of slavery 
and the subjugation of the halting border states at 
the point of the bayonet, he steadily persisted in 
his moderation, and confidently waited for the logic 
of events to bring them into line. 

221 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



"How many times," James Russell Lowell cried 
out, "must we save Kentucky and lose our own 
souls?" Lincoln believed that to "lose Kentucky 
is nearly the same as to lose the whole game." Ken- 
tucky lost, he reasoned, "we cannot hold Missouri, 
nor, as I think, Maryland." These lost, and the 
Union was lost. 

The sentiment and interest of the border people 
were with their kindred in the other slave states 
in the beginning of the conflict. They had not, 
however, been bred in the school of secession, and 
they loved the Union. On the other hand, they 
distrusted the new party in power, and suspected it 
would conduct the war with partisan and sectional 
objects. 

Lincoln alone interested them, and he slowly 
but steadily won their confidence and support. 
Maryland ceased to resist or protest, as the troops 
from the North poured through Baltimore. The 
Confederate government was overthrown in Mis- 
souri, and that state became a stanch upholder 
of the flag. Kentucky elected a Union Legislature, 
and the stars and stripes were run up on the Capitol 
at Frankfort. Thus by the wisest statesmanship, 
pursued under a storm of censure, Lincoln rescued 
the nation from certain destruction before a military 
victory was inscribed on the standard of the Union. 

222 



IN THE GLOOM OF DEFEAT 

By his peaceful capture of the five states which 
lay on the border, including West Virginia, he added 
to the strength of his cause a population of more 
than three million Southerners, who contributed 
above three hundred thousand fighting men to the 
ranks of the Union. Thenceforth the North was 
not required to battle for this vast stretch of southern 
soil, and it became the base of the great armies as 
they moved southward. Lincoln's bare hand had 
dealt the Confederacy a deadlier blow than it ever 
was to receive on any battlefield. 

The war had begun with the cry "On to Rich- 
mond," and public interest was centered upon the 
Army of the Potomac. The people paid much less 
heed to the armies which were forming in the valley 
of the Mississippi. Yet these warriors in the West 
were the first to gladden the national heart with 
a victory, and linked in glory with this victory was 
the unknown name of Grant. 

Without any brilliant reviews or resounding 
proclamations, and unheralded as another Napoleon, 
this obscure and silent soldier led such forces as 
his unfriendly superiors gave him, up the banks 
of the Tennessee River. At Fort Donelson he 
thrilled the wearied nation with the watchwords, 
"Unconditional surrender," and took fifteen thou- 
sand prisoners. 

223 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



In two months more, the sailors and soldiers of 
the Union bore the banished flag up the mouth 
of the Mississippi and hoisted it again over the city 
of New Orleans. Soon Memphis fell, and Port 
Hudson and Vicksburg alone remained to challenge 
the free navigation of the "Father of Waters." 

Few dreamed, however, of the great toll in blood 
which this latter stronghold of the Confederacy 
would yet exact ere it yielded. The loyal moun- 
taineers of Tennessee still waited for the army of 
rescue, and when Sherman said that two hundred 
thousand men would be required for the campaign, 
he was set down as crazy, relieved of his command, 
and sent to St. Louis, where he served in the harm- 
less position of drill-master for the volunteer regi- 
ments. 

Meanwhile the splendid Army of the Potomac 
continued to shine its buttons and dazzle the ladies 
of Washington. Lincoln, in despair, had taken up 
the study of books of tactics, to prepare himself 
for the work which professional soldiers had failed 
to do. 

Forgetful, in his anxiety for the public welfare, 
of any personal feelings he may have had, he ap- 
pointed as Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, 
the lawyer who rudely pushed him out of the trial 
of the reaper case at Cincinnati a few years before 

224 



IN THE GLOOM OF DEFEAT 

and who had been a merciless critic of his administra- 
tion. By this selection a powerful force was added 
to the national counsels. Stanton was a Democrat, 
and had sat in Buchanan's cabinet, and although 
as unlike as two men well could be, Lincoln was 
able to employ and direct the great energy of his 
new and tireless Secretary. 

After more than six months of inaction, McClellan 
was positively ordered to break camp and begin 
a forward movement toward Richmond. Again, 
however, the General delayed, and the Confederate 
army at Manassas was permitted to march away 
unmolested, leaving its terrible-looking wooden can- 
non to mock the timid enemy. 

On the same day that the Confederates exasper- 
ated the North by escaping unhurt from the front of 
a far greater army, consternation was spread abroad 
by the appearance of the Confederate ram Merri- 
mack, in the waters of Hampton Roads. This ves- 
sel, formerly belonging to the navy of the United 
States, had been so covered with iron by its new 
and ingenious owners as to make it invincible against 
wooden ships. With its big iron prow, it readily 
sank the first boat it assailed and its work of de- 
struction continued until it was the unchallenged 
monarch of the Roads. 

No port of the Union was safe with this monster 
q 225 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



afloat, shedding the shot of its foes as a duck sheds 
water. "It may land a shell in the midst of us 
while we are talking here," Stanton said as he stood 
in the cabinet room of the White House. The 
Secretary of War was filled with the gloomiest 
forebodings. The whole character of the war was 
changed. Every naval vessel under the stars and 
stripes would be destroyed by the Merrimack, and 
the great cities of the northern seaboard would be 
laid under tribute of gold. A fleet of canal boats, 
piled with stone, was hastened down the Potomac, 
to be sunk in the channel at the approach of the 
dreaded vessel, in order to prevent its coming to 
Washington. 

Lincoln would not believe the situation could 
be as dark as it looked in that hour of fright. He 
told one anxious caller he expected setbacks and 
defeats, for they are common to all wars, "but," 
he added with simple seriousness, "I have not the 
slightest fear of any result which shall fatally impair 
our military and naval strength. This is God's 
fight, and He will win it in His own good time. He 
will take care our enemies do not push us too far." 

The faith of the man grew with his needs in the 
terrible years of darkness. "I have been driven to 
my knees many times," he confessed, "by the over- 
whelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go." 

226 



IN THE GLOOM OF DEFEAT 

He hoped now that a novel vessel which had in- 
terested him would prove to be a timely instrument 
for the overthrow of the Merrimack. When the 
plans of John Ericsson, the inventor of this craft, 
were brought to Washington, the naval experts 
were divided in their opinion of them. The man 
having them in charge went to the White House 
to see Lincoln, feeling, as every one did, that he was 
ready to hear an appeal. 

Lincoln always was curious about mechanical 
inventions, and he examined the plans with intel- 
ligent interest. "I think there is something in this," 
he remarked, and he went in person to the meeting 
of the experts, where, sitting on a box in the crowded 
room, he lent his influence to the adoption of the 
experiment. 

When the news came of the exploits of the Con- 
federate ironclad, he remembered that Ericsson's 
boat was even then on the way from New York. 
The general opinion was that it would not weather 
the seas, but Lincoln said, "I am sure the Monitor 
is still afloat, and will give a good account of herself." 
In the very evening of the day of the Merrimack's 
triumph, the strange ship, "like a cheese-box on 
a raft," arrived on the scene under tow. 

The Merrimack steamed confidently toward her 
uncanny little foe the next morning, and for three 

227 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



hours the stillness of the Sunday was broken by 
an extraordinary battle, the first that ever took 
place between ironclads. At the end, Lincoln's 
"cheese-box" was the almost unscathed victor, 
and the naval experts, not only at Washington, but 
at every capital of Europe, learned a useful lesson. 
The wooden fighting ship was doomed; a revolu- 
tion had been wrought on the seas. 

The mouth of the James thus freed from the enemy 
by the Monitor, McClellan determined to make his 
tardy advance on Richmond along the banks of 
that river rather than by the direct course, which 
the President favored. Taking with him from 
Washington one hundred and twenty thousand sol- 
diers, his army was readily transported by boats 
down the Potomac. For nearly three months he 
battled in his Peninsular Campaign at Yorktown, 
Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Gaines's Mill, and at 
Malvern Hill. Once his army was within seven 
miles of Richmond, and the archives of the Con- 
federate government were packed for flight. 

All in vain ! Midsummer found McClellan con- 
gratulating himself on a masterly retreat. Lincoln 
was the last to lose faith in this accomplished 
but unsuccessful soldier. He leaned upon him no 
longer. He admitted afterward that the defeat 
of the Peninsular Campaign left him "nearly as 

228 



IN THE GLOOM OF DEFEAT 

inconsolable as I could be and live." When he 
foresaw its failure, he gratified an impulse by writ- 
ing to Secretary Seward a strange pledge : " I expect 
to maintain this contest until successful, or till I die, 
or am conquered, or my term expires, or Congress 
or the country forsake me." 

He called for three hundred thousand more men, 
and started another army southward under Pope; but 
at Bull Run a second defeat was scored against the 
arms of the North. Again the Federals fled from 
the shore of that wretched little stream and sought 
refuge within the fortifications of the capital. 

Emboldened by his unbroken successes to take 
the aggressive, Lee opened a campaign of invasion. 
Washington and Pennsylvania alike trembled at his 
progress northward. Lincoln turned once more to 
McClellan, against the protest of his advisers, and 
called upon him to drive back the Confederate 
chieftain and defend the capital. The battle of 
Antietam resulted, on the soil of Maryland, and the 
invaders were checked there by the Army of the 
Potomac. 

Lincoln had promised God in prayer, if He would 
give the Union a victory, the shackles should be 
stricken from the slaves. When the news of the 
success at Antietam came, he kept his vow and 
drew forth the Emancipation Proclamation, which 

229 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



he had prepared and held in readiness for the 
occasion. By its terms, all slaves within the Con- 
federate lines on the first day of the coming year 
were to be declared free. 

McClellan again disappointed the hopes of 
his chief. He failed to follow the battle of An- 
tietam with an aggressive movement. Lee was suf- 
fered to escape with his beaten army unpursued, 
recross the Potomac, and return to Virginia. The 
President implored his general to move, and personally 
went to see him in his camp. After several weeks 
of waiting, and facing another season of inaction, 
Lincoln relieved him of his command, and McClellan 
parted forever with the Army of the Potomac. 

The succeeding winter, the second of the war, 
was the darkest in the life of the nation since Valley 
Forge. The elections in November were a rebuke 
to the administration. Confederate cruisers were 
banishing American merchant ships from the seas, 
while Grant seemed to be battling- against nature 
herself in the swamps about Vicksburg. 

Loud cries of dissatisfaction arose in the North. 
Men came to Lincoln clamoring for changes in 
commanders and plans and policies. "Gentle- 
men," he said to one delegation of advisers, "sup- 
pose all the property you were worth was in gold, 
and you had put it in the hands of Blondin to carry 

230 




u — 
H -a 



- 2 



< = 
< 

< '= 



< | 

c = 



►J ■; 



IN THE GLOOM OF DEFEAT 

across the Niagara River on a rope. Would you 
shake the cable or keep shouting at him, ' Blondin, 
stand up a little straighter — Blondin, stoop a little 
more — go a little faster — lean a little more to 
the north — lean a little more to the south'? No, 
you would hold your breath as well as your tongue, 
and keep your hands off until he was safe over. 
The government is carrying an enormous weight. 
Untold treasures are in our hands; we are doing 
the very best we can. Don't badger us. Keep 
silence, and we will get you safe across." 

In this period of perplexity, he often sought the 
only relief and refuge open to him, and turned away 
his heavy cares and wearisome callers with a jest. 

A member of Congress who had gone to him 
burdened with complaints, indignantly objected 
when the President started to tell him a story. 
"Mr. President," the member said, leaping to his 
feet, "I beg your pardon, but I did not come here 
this morning to hear a story." A look of pain came 
in Lincoln's face. "I have great confidence in you," 
he said, "and great respect for you, and I know 
how sincere you are; but if I couldn't tell these 
stories, I should die." The Congressman's wrath 
was turned to a new sympathy by this confession. 

As the discontent deepened among the leaders, 
there were strong men who came to the conclusion 

231 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



that a change must be made in the Presidency itself. 
A movement was suggested, having for its object 
the enforced resignation of Lincoln, and the sub- 
stitution of Vice-president Hamlin. In the late 
winter and early spring the feeling was intensified 
by fresh disasters. Lincoln did not bend to the 
gale. In such an hour the courage of the man was 
the salvation of the Union. Behind a brave front, 
and beneath a flippant speech, his heart was heavy 
with grief. Shadows of sorrow enveloped him. 
"I shall never be happy any more," he said. "My 
life springs are wearing out, and I shall not last." 

He had found no general who would act on his 
own responsibility. The conduct of military opera- 
tions was thrown upon his shoulders, and twice 
he had personally gone to the front. The Army 
of the Potomac lost the battles of Fredericksburg 
and Chancellorsville, and once more the unconquered 
Lee was pressing northward. 

As Lincoln held the fateful message from Chan- 
cellorsville in his hand, his face was gray with agony. 
"My God! my God!" he cried in broken tones, 
"what will the country say ? What will the country 
say?" All night he paced the floor, not in despair, 
but in his anxious searching for a way out of the 
darkness. When the clerks came to his office in 
the morning, they found him with sleepless eyes, 

232 



IN THE GLOOM OF DEFEAT 

eating his breakfast at his desk, and beside him 
the instructions to Hooker which he had thought 
out and written down in the long watches he had 
kept alone on the deck of the storm-beaten ship of 
state. 



233 



CHAPTER XXIV 

A BREAK IN THE CLOUDS 



Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863. — Lincoln's 
order to the army to pursue the enemy. — The great battle 
of the war at Gettysburg, July 1, 2, 3, a victory for the Union. 
— Lee's retreat. — Grant's long struggle for Vicksburg, and 
its surrender July 4. — "The 'Father of Waters' goes unvexed 
to the sea." — The draft. — The draft riots in New York, 
July 13, 14, 15, 16. — Lincoln and the "Copperheads." — 
His hatred of tvrannv. — His modesty. — The victories around 
Chattanooga, November 24, 25, 28. — Lincoln's Gettysburg 
address, November 19, 1863. 

The war had been in progress more than two 
years, when Lee, with easy confidence, left the de- 
fences of Richmond, and at the head of the ever 
victorious Army of Northern Virginia bore the stars 
and bars of the South into the North. 

The great captain of the Confederacy had so 
readilv overthrown in turn each champion of the 
Union who had been sent against him that the foe 
no longer inspired his respect. He resolved to carry 
the war into the enemy's country, strike terror to the 
prosperous population of the free states, deal the 
Union a staggering blow on the heart, unfurl his 
colors above the Capitol at Washington, and dictate 
a final peace to a prostrate nation. 

234 



A BREAK IN THE CLOUDS 



As Lee's mighty columns swept upward, Hooker, 
in command of the Army of the Potomac, proposed 
to swoop down on Richmond and take the exposed 
capital of the Confederacy. Lincoln, however, 
instantly rejected this plan, without losing a minute 
for consultation with military advisers. Guided by 
his own common sense, he told Hooker that Lee's 
army, and not Richmond, should be his point of 
attack. 

He argued that the city could not be captured in 
less than twenty days. In all that time, Lee would 
have a free hand in his invasion. Moreover, Rich- 
mond was worth nothing in comparison with the 
capture or defeat of the Confederate army. " Follow 
on his flank," Lincoln's order ran, "and on his 
inside track, shortening your lines while he lengthens 
his." No decision in the war was more important 
than this, or more fruitful of results. 

Hooker pursued Lee across Maryland. The 
Confederates entered Pennsylvania unchallenged, 
however, and seventy-five thousand southern soldiers 
trod the free soil of the Keystone State. At one 
time their cavalry dashed up to the picket lines of 
Harrisburg. Both Pittsburg and Philadelphia were 
thrown into panic. Labor ceased in those busy 
centers of northern industry, and the laborers were 
marshaled for defence. 

235 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



At the height of the black crisis, the Army of 
the Potomac was left leaderless. General Hooker 
resigned the command in a military quarrel. 
The country stood appalled. Lincoln and Stanton 
hastened to place General Meade at the head of 
the forces. 

The new commander grasped the reins with des- 
perate energy, and with his ninety thousand men fol- 
lowed the invaders into Pennsylvania so swiftly that 
Lee was compelled to turn about and face him at 
the village of Gettysburg, only a few miles from 
the Maryland line. There for three days, in wheat 
fields and peach orchards, across lovely valleys and 
up gentle hills, the two great armies fought an im- 
mortal battle with the life of the Union as the stake. 

The opening shock of the gigantic combat occurred 
on the first day of July, and when night fell, victory 
again was with the sword of Lee. The second 
day dawned upon the rival hosts facing each other 
from opposite heights, with a valley hardly a mile 
wide between them. Another night found the Union 
army holding its ground, but with nearly twenty 
thousand of its men dead or wounded. 

A little after noon of the third day, while the 
foemen watched in silence, the Confederates sud- 
denly opened a furious bombardment with one 
hundred and fifteen guns. For an hour and a half 

236 



A BREAK IN THE CLOUDS 



the terrible roar of the cannonading lasted, and 
then stillness again until Pickett rode out to the 
crown of Seminary Ridge, which the Confederates 
held, and with fifteen thousand men in gray behind 
him paraded down the slope. Across the valley 
they charged, their banners flying, beneath a mad- 
dening hail of iron from the Union batteries. 

With ranks frightfully thinned but unwavering, 
they began the climb up Cemetery Ridge, looking 
into the smoking muzzles of the enemy. Even at 
musket range, the survivors pressed on until a Con- 
federate officer with a hundred men had vaulted 
the stone wall in front of the Union forces, and 
borne the battle flags of the South to the very 
crest of Cemetery Ridge. There the little band of 
Southerners paused for a moment in the midst of 
their foes; the battle tide of the Confederacy had 
come to its flood. 

The bugle sounded retreat, and the broken 
brigade fell back, while the men in blue who held 
the Ridge mingled with their proud rejoicing a 
hearty admiration for the gallantry of their fellow- 
Americans in gray. As Pickett's brave band, 
now pitifully few in numbers, returned to Seminary 
Ridge and flung themselves at the feet of their com- 
rades, Lee sadly confessed, "All this has been my 
fault; it is I who have lost the fight." 

237 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



For the Confederacy had lost the battle of Gettys- 
burg and its great stake. The Union was saved. 
The next day was the Fourth of July, and the North 
kept it as a thanksgiving, while Lee with his shattered 
army turned his face southward to make his last 
stand in front of Richmond. 

When General Meade failed to press his advantage 
and smash or capture the invading army before it 
could recross the Potomac, Lincoln's disappoint- 
ment clouded his enjoyment of the victory. He 
entreated the General not to let Lee escape. The 
General and his corps commanders, however, in 
the reaction from the terrible strain under which 
they had been working throughout the momentous 
campaign, did not care for more fighting at once. 

On hearing of their decision in council, Lincoln 
blamed himself for not having taken the field in 
person, in an effort to crush Lee, thus hastening 
the end of the war. When Meade expressed his 
satisfaction that the enemy in its retreat was no 
longer on our soil, the President complained, "Why 
will not our generals get that notion out of their 
heads? All American soil is ours!" 

While watching and urging the movement which 
came to its climax at Gettysburg, Lincoln's heavy 
anxiety was greatly increased by the long campaign 
which Grant was making against Vicksburg. From 

238 



A BREAK IN THE CLOUDS 



midwinter to midsummer, the unresting victor of 
Fort Donelson, "Unconditional Surrender" Grant, 
as he had been admiringly called, struggled to cap- 
ture that citadel of the Confederacy. He moved 
down the Mississippi, from which, however, he could 
not assault Vicksburg, perched on the frowning brow 
of a lofty bluff. It could be successfully attacked 
only in the rear, which, moreover, could not be 
reached from the north where Grant's soldiers were, 
because a vast watery jungle lay between it and 
them. The only approach was from the south. 

To go below by way of the river, it was neces- 
sary to run past the powerful batteries. Gunboats 
tried to pick their way along small streams, but the 
vigilant enemy succeeded in blocking the narrow 
and crooked course by felling trees across it, and 
by posting sharp-shooters in the dense woods that 
lined the shores. 

Many weeks were spent in desperate and unsuc- 
cessful attempts to solve the hard problem. The 
bayous and swamps surrounding the place, the sud- 
den rises in the waters of the Mississippi, and the 
ingenuity of the enemy baffled Grant's every effort. 
Meanwhile his army clung to the levee, or bank of 
the river, as the only bit of dry ground for its en- 
campment. Its tents stretched in a thin line along 
the Mississippi for seventy miles. 

239 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Disease broke out among the men; the North 
became discouraged. The demand for a new com- 
mander grew until it seemed to be almost unani- 
mous. Grant had not been a Republican, and was 
without influential friends at Washington. He was 
a stranger to the country at large. Lincoln, who 
had never seen the man, was nearly alone in stand- 
ing by him in his hour of trial, stoutly resisting 
the loud cry for his removal. 

When all other plans had failed, Grant determined 
upon a bold movement. He marched his men down 
the levee, but his horses and their provender, his 
wagons and artillery could not move by that nar- 
row path. He therefore loaded them on transports, 
and in the darkness of night the boats ran by the 
blazing cannon of Vicksburg. For two hours they 
were under fire as they steamed around the bend 
in the river. Nevertheless, the passage was made 
with only slight losses. 

With his men and his supplies now safely below 
the forts, Grant opened his campaign upon the rear 
of Vicksburg, completely cutting himself ofF from 
his base and living on the country. He had first to 
encounter a protecting army of the enemy and beat 
it. In the course of this task he took the city of 
Jackson, Mississippi, and hoisted the stars and 
stripes over the Capitol of the state of Jefferson 

240 



A BREAK IN THE CLOUDS 



Davis. Then he began the siege of Vicksburg in 
the almost tropical heat of a southern summer. 

The place was so well fortified that it could not 
be taken by storm, and the besiegers crept upon 
their long-sought prize inch by inch as they mined 
and burrowed in the earth. The advance was made 
through trenches and tunnels, until Vicksburg was 
entirely surrounded and cut off, with the Union 
gunboats controlling the river in front, and Grant's 
army investing it in the rear. Yet it gallantly stood 
by its guns until it was face to face with starva- 
tion. Not another morsel of food could its garrison 
obtain. 

The boats on the river and the batteries in the 
rear shelled the city night and day. Its people 
dug caves, as the only shelters from the incessant 
rain of deadly fire, and men, women, and children 
lived in them. 

At last the famishing and battered town could no 
longer withstand the siege, and a white flag fluttered 
from the Confederate parapet. The commander, 
Pemberton, was a northern man, a Pennsylvanian, 
who had resigned from the United States army at 
the outbreak of the war and cast his lot with the 
South. He and Grant had met in a happier time, 
in the campaign in Mexico. Their acquaintance 
was renewed in the shade of an oak tree, where 
r 241 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



they discussed the terms of surrender. The next 
day, the Fourth of July, while all the North was 
glad for its deliverance at Gettysburg, the flag of 
the Confederacy was lowered on the heights of 
Vicksburg, the city's brave defenders stacking their 
arms and marching out past the men of the con- 
quering army of Grant, whose rejoicing was silenced 
in their respect for a worthy foe. 

Lincoln listened day and night for the news. 
"Nothing from Grant yet!" he exclaimed as he 
ran through the despatches late one night. "Why 
don't we hear from Grant ? I shall stay up until 
I hear something." There was no telegraph to 
Vicksburg, and the precious message had to be sent 
up the river to Illinois by steamer before it could 
be placed on the wires for Washington. 

When at last it came, Lincoln felt richly rewarded 
for his vigilance. The nation burst into joy. The 
White House was serenaded for the first time since 
the cloud of war settled upon it. " I am very glad 
indeed to see you to-night," Lincoln said to the 
jubilant throng from a window, "and yet I will not 
say I thank you for this call; but I do most sincerely 
thank God Almighty for the occasion on which you 
have called." 

In a few days a freight steamer passed in peace 
down the Mississippi from St. Louis to New Orleans. 

242 



A BREAK IN THE CLOUDS 



When the people of the upper valley met at Spring- 
field, Illinois, to celebrate the reopening of their 
great natural highway, Lincoln sent to the meeting 
a letter inspired by a grateful heart. "The 'Father 
of Waters' again goes unvexed to the sea," so ran 
the fine keynote which he struck, this one-time flat- 
boatman who had floated on its broad bosom in 
his youth. He warned the country, however, not 
to be "over-sanguine of a speedy, final triumph." 

The war was, indeed, far from ended. Even on 
the heels of victory, the draft began. Until now 
the ranks of the immense armies had been filled 
entirely by volunteers, encouraged by the liberal 
bounties which many states offered to those who 
enlisted. Under the great drain on the fighting 
strength of the North, and the long series of disasters 
in the summer and winter of 1862, the martial 
spirit of the people was at last exhausted. Warfare 
was no longer a holiday pastime. Volunteering 
ceased, and no recruits came forward to take the 
places of the thousands who fell in battle or were 
stricken by disease. 

The furnishing of supplies to the army, and the 
large output of paper money, had brought on a 
business boom. Labor was in strong demand, and 
wages were high. There was every temptation for 
men to stay at home and work. 

243 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



The government was driven to draft its soldiers, 
to compel men to join the army. Agents of the 
War Department knocked at every door in the land, 
and enrolled the names of all citizens of military 
age. In each district these names were written on 
separate slips of paper. A man blindfolded drew 
forth one paper at a time, and read the name which 
it bore. Any one whose slip was drawn must go 
into the army for three years or pay a forfeit of 
three hundred dollars. 

This privilege of buying off excited indignation 
among the poorer people of New York City, who 
denounced it as an act of favoritism toward the rich, 
and it was also believed that unfair demands were 
made on the districts where laboring men lived. 
A wild riot broke out, and for nearly four days 
the city was in the hands of a furious mob, who 
killed and burned and robbed. Business was 
brought to a standstill. The uprising was not 
suppressed until the dead and wounded numbered 
a thousand, and the property loss amounted to two 
million dollars. Ten thousand troops were massed 
in the city when the draft was resumed in peace. 

Lincoln was unusually distressed by this outbreak 
among the working people, for whom more than 
all else he was striving to save the Union. They 
quietly obeyed the hard law generally, however, 

244 



A BREAK IN THE CLOUDS 



throughout the country. The brighter prospects of 
the success of the Union arms which Gettysburg 
and Vicksburg held out, and the earnest work of 
the states, revived the spirit of volunteering, and 
it proved not to be necessary after all to draft a 
very large number of soldiers. 

At all times, Lincoln's difficulties in the North 
were only second to his difficulties at the South. 
It was not his fortune to lead a united people against 
a foreign foe. The war was between brethren of 
a common country and on home soil. As in the 
beginning, opinion in the North was divided on 
the question of going to war, so it remained divided 
on the question of continuing the war. 

A large section of the party in opposition to the 
Republicans, while standing on its right and its 
duty to criticise the political measures of the ad- 
ministration, loyally sent its members to the front 
by the tens of thousands and elected representatives 
to Congress, who supported the army in the field. 
The Secretary of War himself and many of the 
foremost generals were drawn from this great body 
of patriotic Democrats, without whose devotion, 
often under trying circumstances, the Union could 
not have been saved. 

There was a faction, on the other hand, which 
took the position that the Union could be restored, 

245 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



not by force, but only by compromise. The members 
of this faction were called "Copperheads," because 
some of them had cut from copper one-cent pieces 
the head of liberty, and worn it as a pin. 

This faction, sometimes operating in secret societies, 
was far more exasperating than influential in its 
extreme hostility to the administration and the war. 
Lincoln showed little disposition to repress the 
Copperheads, or even notice them. Subordinates, 
however, not gifted with the President's temper, 
were often stung to strike at them and in their zeal 
against them to violate the right of free speech 
and the principles on which the republic rested. 
Newspapers were suppressed, arbitrary arrests were 
made, and men locked up in military forts without 
charge or trial, and on mere suspicion. 

Although convinced that to save the Union he 
could rightfully disregard the Constitution itself, and 
all the guaranteed rights of citizens, Lincoln did not 
enjoy the exercise of the despotic authority which 
he held in his hands. He hated and dreaded to put 
it forth. He himself never attacked an individual, 
or sought to injure any man in body or estate. It 
has been truly said that he abused his tyrannical 
power only to pardon, and on the side of mercy. 

Invested with the greatest authority ever reposed 
in an American, he remained, throughout, a simple 

246 



A BREAK IN THE CLOUDS 



man of the people. Supreme title and authority 
failed to exalt or change him. Even with a million 
armed men under his command, his manner was 
as unaffected and modest as when he led a company 
of fellow-rustics from New Salem in the Black 
Hawk War. While guiding generals and cabinet 
ministers, he never could bring himself to use 
dictatorial language. 

The summer of 1863 closed with the Union 
forces struggling to gain the natural gateway to 
the South through the mountains of Tennessee 
at Chattanooga. News of a reverse which they 
suffered reached Lincoln one night in September 
while he was lodging in a cottage at the Soldiers' 
Home, near Washington. "I have feared it," he 
said, "for several days. I believe I feel trouble in 
the air before it comes." He mounted his horse and 
rode to the city in the moonlight, to take measures 
for reenforcing the army. 

A few weeks later, with Grant in command, the 
flag of the nation was borne through a series of 
notable successes around Chattanooga. Lookout 
Mountain was won by a "battle in the clouds," 
and Missionary Ridge was inscribed among the 
great victories on the standards of the Union. 

The national exultation over a glorious summer 
reached its climax at Gettysburg in November, 

247 



ABRAHAM LLNCOLN 



when a multitude of people met to dedicate the 
burial-place of thirty-five hundred of those who 
fell in battle there. Edward Everett was the chosen 
orator, but the President had been invited to make 
"a few appropriate remarks." 

Lincoln had no time for special preparation, 
and seemed indifferent to his slight part in the 
celebration. He wrote half of his speech on the 
day before he left Washington, and did not have a 
chance to finish it until he was in Gettysburg and 
about to start for the cemetery. The closing sen- 
tences were hastily scribbled in pencil, and then he 
went on horseback in the procession to the scene 
of the exercises, where one hundred thousand 
people were gathered. 

The two speakers represented the extremes in 
methods of culture. Everett had been favored 
with every facility for education, which universities 
at home and abroad, association with cultivated 
people and the observations of travel afford, and 
his learning had won for him the honor of the 
Presidency of Harvard College. 

Lincoln's schooling had been limited to six months 
in a tumble-down cabin in the wilderness, while 
his life had been lived among an unschooled people. 
His taste for literature was untrained, and had been 
little indulged. "I never read an entire novel in 

248 



A BREAK IN THE CLOUDS 



my life," he once confessed, and according to his law- 
partner, Herndon, he "never sat down and read 
a book through." His two favorites, however, — 
the Bible and Shakespeare, — he knew well. The 
former lay on his desk in the White House always, 
while he made it a rule to carry a volume of the 
great English bard with him when on a journey. 

It was inevitable that the speeches of these men, 
so different in their training, should be compared, 
and Lincoln's personal friends were disturbed by 
the fear that he had not prepared himself to do his 
best. Everett spoke for two hours, delivering an 
address of unusual beauty and eloquence, after 
which a great choir sang a dirge. Then Lincoln 
rose to speak the closing words. 

While he sat on the speakers' platform, the people 
standing on the ground had been unable to see him. 
Now as he lifted himself into view they almost 
forgot to cheer, in their eagerness to behold "Father 
Abraham," whom they had followed in storm and 
sunshine. They tiptoed to look upon his care-worn 
face, full of the woe of war, while for a moment he 
stood before them in silence. He seemed not to 
return their gaze, or to see any one among all those 
thousands. 

When he spoke, his high, penetrating tones carried 
his words to the outermost fringe of the vast audi- 

249 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



ence, which had not yet, however, become attentive. 
He held his hastily written manuscript in his left 
hand, and merely cast a glance at it once. In less 
than three minutes the people were amazed to see 
him disappear from their view, as he resumed his 
seat. He had finished and retired before a pho- 
tographer, who had planned to make a negative 
of the imposing scene, could adjust his camera. 

The men on the platform who had settled them- 
selves to listen to a speech of some length, had not 
caught the force of the little he said, and were dis- 
appointed. "He has made a failure," Seward said 
to Everett, "and I am sorry for it. His speech was 
not equal to him." 

Only when it was spread on the printed page and 
taken by itself apart from the bustle of the throng, 
was it recognized as an immortal masterpiece, this 
wonderful prose poem : — 

"Fourscore and seven years ago, our fathers 
brought forth on this continent a new nation, con- 
ceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition 
that all men are created equal. Now we are en- 
gaged in a great civil war, testing whether that 
nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, 
can long endure. We are met on a great battle- 
field of that war. We have come to dedicate a por- 
tion of that field as a final resting-place for those 

250 



A BREAK IN THE CLOUDS 



who here gave their lives that that nation might 
live. 

"It is altogether fitting and proper that we should 
do this. But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, 
we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. 
The brave men living and dead, who struggled here, 
have consecrated it far above our poor power to 
add or detract. The world will little note nor long 
remember, what we say here, but it can never for- 
get what they did here. 

"It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated 
here to the unfinished work which they who fought 
here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather 
for us to be here dedicated to the great task remain- 
ing before us — that from these honored dead we 
take increased devotion to that cause for which they 
gave the last full measure of devotion — that we 
here highly resolve that these dead shall not have 
died in vain — that this nation under God, shall 
have a new birth of freedom — and that govern- 
ment of the people, by the people, for the people, 
shall not perish from the earth." 

Everett, on reading this address, was among the 
first to see its quality. "I should be glad," he 
wrote, "if I could flatter myself that I came as near 
the central idea of the occasion in two hours as 
you did in two minutes." A high London authority 

251 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



ranked it with the noblest classic in the golden age 
of Greek eloquence. 

The speech was born of the year so inspiring to 
Lincoln, who at last had been permitted to see, be- 
tween the breaking clouds, "the home of freedom," 
as he said in his message to Congress when it met 
in December, "disenthralled, regenerated, enlarged, 
and perpetuated." 



252 



CHAPTER XXV 
don't swap horses while crossing the river' 



Lincoln's campaign for reelection in 1864, in a season of doubt 
and gloom. — "Anybody but Lincoln," the cry of the politicians, 
but the plain people would have no one else for their candidate. 
— Republicans drop their party name, and Lincoln and John- 
son nominated on a Union ticket at Baltimore, June 8, 1864. — 
"Don't swap horses," Lincoln's watchword for the country. — 
The Confederate raid on Washington, under General Early, 
July 10. — The capital in danger. — The repulse, July 12. — 
A time of despair. — Gold rose to $2.85, July 16. — Another 
call for 500,000 men. — "I intend to go down with my 
colors flying." — Lincoln's withdrawal demanded by Republi- 
can leaders. — His own opinion, August 23, that he would 
be defeated. — McClellan nominated for President by the Demo- 
crats, August 31. — "The war a failure." — The tide turned by 
Sherman's and Sheridan's victories in September. — Lincoln 
triumphantly reelected November 8. — The popular vote, 
Lincoln, 2,216,067; McClellan, 1,808,725. — The electoral 
vote, Lincoln 212; McClellan 21. — The Confederacy doomed. 

In some respects the year 1864 was the hardest 
of all for Lincoln. Encouraged by the victories 
of the preceding summer, public opinion looked 
for a speedy ending of the war in the spring, when 
the armies of the Union, inspired by the memory 
of glorious successes and under Grant as General- 
in-chief, left their winter quarters and moved upon 
the enemy. Nevertheless, after weeks filled with 

2 53 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



frightful slaughter, Lee and Johnston still bore aloft 
the defiant banner of the unconquered Confederacy, 
and the North was disheartened. 

Drooping spirits were revived for a while by 
Grant's ringing message, "I propose to fight it out 
on this line if it takes all summer." The terrible 
sacrifices in the battles of the Wilderness, Spott- 
sylvania, and Cold Harbor, however, sent a shudder 
through the land. In forty days, Grant had lost 
fifty thousand men battling with Lee and settled 
down to the grim siege of Petersburg. At the same 
time, Sherman was paying for every inch of ground 
he slowly gained against Johnston in Georgia. 

In a season of doubt and gloom, Lincoln himself 
must fight a battle at the polls for his reelection 
to the Presidency. The radicals in the Republican 
party were in open revolt against him. They held 
a National Convention and nominated John C. 
Fremont for President. 

The Republican politicians were equally opposed 
to the President. "Anybody but Lincoln " seemed 
to be the well-nigh unanimous sentiment among 
them. He himself admitted he had only one friend 
in the entire House of Representatives on whom he 
could rely. 

The leaders did not complain of any personal 
slight at Lincoln's hands. On the contrary, he 

254 




From the collection of Frederick H. Meserve, Esq., New York City 

One of the Most Interesting of All Lincoln Portr,- 



"DON'T SWAP HORSES — " 



had shown rare consideration for the feelings of 
all. His marvelous temper had withstood the great 
strain of his duties and troubles, and he had quarreled 
with no one. Indeed, the natural dignity of the 
man's mind was such as to restrain him from enter- 
ing into controversies. He would not turn around 
to repel even the most unjust attack. "If the end 
brings me out all right, what is said against me 
won't amount to anything," he reasoned; "if the 
end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I 
was right would make no difference." 

He never criticised, complained, or explained. 
It was not his habit to discuss his associates in public 
life. He made no threats against individuals, and 
took no revenges. He even permitted a member 
of his cabinet, Secretary Chase, to be a candidate 
against him for the nomination. 

Lincoln's opponents objected to him chiefly be- 
cause he had not yet conducted the war to a success, 
and because he was not as much of a partisan as 
they wished to see in the White House. He was 
ruled by his conscience and not by a caucus. He 
would be bound to no faction, but insisted on keep- 
ing his hands free to serve the whole people. 

Once he illustrated his position in this respect 
with a "little story." It was of a roving family 
who were so much on the move that their chickens 

255 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



would lie on their backs and cross their legs, ready 
to be tied, whenever they saw the wagon brought 
out. "Now," Lincoln explained by way of a moral 
for the tale, "if I were to listen to every committee 
that comes in at that door, I might just as well cross 
my hands and let you tie me." 

In the midst of war, with the life of the nation 
in jeopardy, party with him was only a means to 
an end. His devotion to the Union rose above 
everything else. Former Democrats were in a 
majority in his cabinet, and McClellan, Burnside, 
Meade, and Grant among his generals were not 
regarded as Republicans. He forgot party preju- 
dices, and even his own personal feelings in his 
passion for the Union. 

When he heard of an order driving a general out 
of the army for having made a speech in support 
of the Democratic candidate, McClellan, the Presi- 
dent stopped it. "Supporting General McClellan 
for the Presidency," he said, "is no violation of 
army regulations, and as a question of taste in 
choosing between him and me, — well, I'm the 
longest, but he's better-looking." 

As soon as the masses of Lincoln's party were 
heard from, it was clearly seen that their faith in 
him had not been weakened by his critics, and that 
they would not accept any other leadership. Little 

256 



"DON'T SWAP HORSES 



by little his character had gained the solid respect 
of intellectual men and the confidence of the business 
world. The people, the plain people, as he liked 
to call them, however, had been drawn to him by 
instinct as to their own. They were the first to 
trust in his wisdom, his common sense, and to 
recognize his power to lead. 

Now, in the thick of the cries and plots of hostile 
politicians, the voice of the people was lifted in his 
behalf, and the mutterings of the opposition were 
drowned in its mighty volume. Legislatures and 
conventions East and West declared for his re- 
nomination, with a unanimity that left no room 
for doubt. 

When the National Convention met, it reflected 
his spirit. The delegates dropped their party 
designation entirely. They did not nominate him 
on a Republican, but on a Union ticket, and they 
chose Andrew Johnson, a Democrat, as the candidate 
for Vice-president. The only excitement manifested 
in the proceedings was aroused by the politicians 
who strove for the honor of seconding Lincoln's 
name. 

After the adjournment of the Convention, a dele- 
gation of the National Union League called at 
the White House to congratulate the President, and 
it was on this occasion that he made a remark 
s 257 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



now so familiar. " I do not allow myself to suppose," 
Lincoln said, "that either the Convention or the 
League have concluded that I am either the greatest 
or the best man in America, but rather they have 
concluded it is not best to swap horses while cross- 
ing the river, and have further concluded that I 
am not so poor a horse that they might not make 
a botch of it in trying to swap." 

This homely maxim sank into the public mind j 
and became probably the most potent argument 
in the campaign. "Don't swap horses while cross- 
ing the river" was thenceforth the inspiring watch- 
word. 

The slow and desperate struggle on the battle- 
field continued through the summer, and the de- 
pression of the Republican leaders fell to its lowest 
level. Men of business, too, who were making 
fortunes never dreamed of before in this country, 
grew more and more fearful of the future. It is 
doubtful, however, if the stout hearts of the people 
were much affected in their loyalty to Lincoln and 
their determination to sustain the war. 

A Confederate army dashed up to the city limits 
of Washington in July and skirmished in full view 
of the Capitol dome, the work of finishing which 
had steadily gone on by Lincoln's orders throughout 
the war. The city was caught almost defenceless. 

258 



"DON'T SWAP HORSES—" 



Government clerks shouldered guns beside the few 
thousand troops available to repel the invader. 

The President himself visited the firing- line and 
was in sight of the Confederates. There was a 
panic in the North over the prospect of the loss 
of the capital. Gold leaped up in value until a 
gold dollar was worth two dollars and eighty-five 
cents in paper money. Nothing shook Lincoln's 
patience more than the greed which led men to 
speculate in each misfortune that overtook the 
country. "I wish every one of them had his devilish 
head shot off," he exclaimed in unwonted anger 
while discussing the "gold sharks" with the Governor 
of Pennsylvania. 

When the news of the bold invasion reached 
Europe, the hopes of those who had looked for the 
downfall of the Union were revived. Napoleon III 
is quoted as having exulted that the Confederacy 
would surely capture Washington. The people at 
the capital feared it would have to be abandoned, 
and a steamer was in readiness to bear the Presi- 
dent and cabinet to safety. Happily, reinforcements 
came from Grant, and the Confederates stole 
away. 

More men w T ere needed by the armies, and Lin- 
coln determined to call for them. Political advisers 
begged him not to do it, as they feared it would 

259 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



ruin his chance of reelection. He put their advice 
aside. "It is not a personal question at all," he 
replied. "It matters not what becomes of me. 
We must have the men. If I go down, I intend 
to go like the Cumberland, with my colors flying." 

The call was issued. It made the staggering 
demand for five hundred thousand men, and pro- 
vided for drafting them in September if the states 
should fail to provide them before that date. 

No news of victory came from the front in those 
critical weeks of the early summer. Instead, the 
wounded and the sick poured into Washington in 
a steady stream. Lincoln could not go from the 
White House in any direction without passing a 
hospital. War-broken men hobbled about every- 
where. In driving to his summer cottage at the 
Soldiers' Home, he was likely to come upon a long 
line of ambulances, filled with the suffering. 

"I cannot bear it," he once said to a companion, 
as he turned his saddened face away from the piti- 
ful scene. "This is dreadful." The man tried to 
lighten the President's spirits by assuring him that 
victory would surely come. "Yes," he admitted, 
"victory will come, but it comes slowly." 

There were nights not a few when he could not 
sleep. "How willingly would I exchange places 
with a soldier who sleeps on the ground in the Army 

260 



"DON'T SWAP HORSES—" 



of the Potomac," he remarked one morning with 
a heavy sigh, as he took up the duties of a new day. 

Physically he bore the burden of his unceasing 
labors like the giant he was. He was so tortured 
through his sympathies, however, that he looked 
in his face like a broken-down man. His heart 
seemed to be weighted with all the woes of the land, 
public and private. Old friends seeing him after 
the lapse of the years since he left them in Illinois, 
were shocked by the deep lines which time had 
stamped on his countenance. He did not hope for 
anything beyond the end of the war; he lived only in 
the task of restoring the Union. "I shall not last 
long after it is over," he told Harriet Beecher Stowe. 

As the summer wore on without any military 
successes to stimulate the public mind, Lincoln's 
reelection grew more and more doubtful. The 
Democrats had postponed their convention until the 
last of August, but McClellan was already certain 
to be their candidate for President. At last the 
Republican leaders lost all hope. Lincoln's best 
friends felt obliged to tell him it was impossible 
for him to win. 

A determined movement sprang up among im- 
portant members of the party to call a conference, 
and urge him to withdraw from the hopeless contest, 
and permit another to take his place. Many favored 

261 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



substituting General Benjamin F. Butler of Massa- 
chusetts. Charles Sumner had regarded himself 
as a confidant of the President, who once smilingly 
remarked, "Sumner thinks he runs me." As the 
election drew near, the Massachusetts Senator 
agreed with the opposition, and wished Lincoln 
would see that patriotism required his retirement, 
because of his lack of " practical talent for his im- 
portant place." 

Lincoln, however, did not believe anything would 
be gained by "swapping horses," although he him- 
self finally accepted the opinion that there was 
little prospect of his own success. He sat down 
on August 23, wrote out a resolution which he had 
taken in secret, and sealed it. 

"This morning," so this strange paper ran, "as 
for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable 
that this administration will not be reelected. 
Then it will be my duty to so cooperate with the 
President-elect as to save the Union between the 
election and the inauguration, as he will have secured 
the election on such ground that he cannot possibly 
save it afterwards." 

The Democratic National Convention held its 
session in the last days of August, and nominated 
McClellan on a platform declaring that after four 
years of failure in the struggle to restore the Union 

262 



"DON'T SWAP HORSES—" 



by war, the time had come for a cessation of hostilities 
and an effort to restore it by peaceable negotiation. 
This was a view held by many men at the time, 
including not a few influential Republicans. 

Startling events, however, coming in a remarkable 
series, quickly and completely corrected the opinion 
that the war was a failure. Sherman roused the 
nation by this message from Georgia on September 2, 
"Atlanta is ours and fairly won." 

Only a few days before, the President, by direction 
of Congress, had caused a day to be set apart for 
"humiliation and prayer." Now he called on the 
people to give thanks. After hardly more than 
a fortnight, Sheridan won the battle of Winchester 
in the Shenandoah. Once more the country re- 
joiced. 

The early state elections foreshadowed a victory 
for Lincoln at the polls in November. When elec- 
tion night came, he sat in the War Department 
until the morning hours, receiving the news of his 
success, and in the lulls reading aloud the humorous 
yarns of Petroleum V. Nasbv in a little book of 
yellow paper covers, which he had brought with 
him in the breast pocket of his coat. 

As soon as his reelection was assured, he re- 
membered Mrs. Lincoln's anxiety and said, "Send 
the word right over to Madam; she will be more 

263 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



interested than I am." It was found on the com- 
plete returns that he had been chosen by a majority 
of nearly half a million votes, carrying all the states 
remaining in the Union except New Jersey, Dela- 
ware, and Kentucky. 

Late as was the hour when he returned to the 
White House, he was greeted there by a party of 
serenaders. All feeling of personal exultation was 
lost in his deep satisfaction that the people had 
resolved to go on with the war for the Union. "It 
is no pleasure to me to triumph over any one," he 
said in acknowledging the serenade. 

A day or two afterward he made another speech, 
in which he pointed out the value of the experience 
through which the country had passed, showing as 
it did that a popular government could sustain 
a national election while under the strain of a great 
civil war. "We cannot have free government with- 
out elections," he told the people. "If a rebel- 
lion could force us to forego or postpone a national 
election, it might fairly claim to have already con- 
quered and ruined us." 

The Union went on in its triumph. Sheridan 
through the fall and into the winter cleared the val- 
ley of the Shenandoah — that great natural avenue 
by which the Confederacy had thrice invaded the 
North. Sherman marched to the sea. Thomas 

264 



"DON'T SWAP HORSES—" 



overwhelmed and utterly dispersed a Confederate 
army in Tennessee. Lee was foredoomed to defeat 
as soon as spring should come. 

Lincoln's eyes beheld the dawn of peace, and all 
saw the new light that was in them as he turned 
from the sword which he hated to the olive branch 
which he loved. 



265 



CHAPTER XXVI 

LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE 



How the Civil War was brought home to the President and his 
family. — Old friends who wore the gray. — Lincoln's tears 
for a fallen Confederate brigadier. — Mrs. Lincoln's brothers 
slain under the Stars and Bars. — Heavy shadows in the 
Executive Mansion relieved only by Lincoln's sense of humor. 

— Four years with no vacations. — Lincoln's religious creed. 

— His simple life and plain manners in the White House. — 
How he met his visitors, and how he dressed. — Evenings with 
friends. — What he read. — Forgetting his meals. — His 
light diet. — His muscular strength. — Open house to the 
people. — His "public opinion baths." — His democratic 
ideals and practices. 

The full meaning of the Civil War was brought 
home to the Lincolns in the White House as much 
as to any family in the land. To multitudes alike 
in the North and in the South it differed little from 
a strife with a foreign nation. Their families were 
not divided by it, and they never were called upon 
to sorrow over a fallen foe. 

On the other hand, the battle line crossed the 
very hearthstone of the President's home. The 
President of the United States was as much a 
Southerner by birth as the President of the Con- 
federate States himself, since both were born in 

266 



LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE 

Kentucky. Some of Lincoln's oldest and dearest 
friends wore the gray. 

Mrs. Lincoln, too, was a Kentuckian and deeply 
attached to her southern kindred. The husband 
of one of her sisters, Ben Hardin Helm, had been 
a favorite of her own husband. When Lincoln 
became President, he summoned Helm to Wash- 
ington for the purpose of giving him a place of 
honor under the administration. On his return 
to Kentucky, a major's commission was forwarded 
to him by the President; but Helm after a painful 
wrestle with his doubts went with the South. He 
showed himself a brilliant soldier and died gallantly 
on the field of Chickamauga. 

There is a story that, after the news of the battle 
reached Washington, the great chieftain of the 
Union was found in bitter tears, weeping over the 
loss of this Confederate brigadier. Not only were 
several of Mrs. Lincoln's sisters parted from her by 
the war, their husbands' hands against her husband's 
cause, but some of her brothers as well were in the 
Confederate service. 

While the duty fell to her to open a grand ball in 
honor of the Union victory at Shiloh, one of her 
brothers, who in his youth has been the darling of 
her heart, lay dead on that battlefield in a uni- 
form of gray. Another brother in the Confederacy 

267 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



fell at Vicksburg and was dying while his sister 
in the White House listened to the shouts of re- 
joicing over the victory of Grant. 

With the affection of his family thus torn by 
a fratricidal strife, and with his mind and heart 
constantly weighted by the cares of the distracted 
nation, there was little gayety in the household of 
the President. The usual official banquets and recep- 
tions went on mechanically. At such times Lincoln 
stood unweariedly by the hour, his big white-gloved 
hand grasping the hands of the passing throng, 
but all the while his eyes looked far beyond the 
scene, as they followed his thoughts to the trenches 
where his soldiers were battling for the Union. 

He seemed neither to see nor to hear most of those 
whom he greeted on such occasions. No chance, 
however, was lost for the play of his humor. "Up 
our way," an old man said, when presented at one 
of the receptions, "we believe in God and Abraham 
Lincoln." The President's face lighted up as he 
replied, "My friend, you are more than half right." 

His irrepressible sense of humor broke through 
even the stiffest ceremonials, as, for instance, when 
the bachelor Minister of Great Britain, Lord Lyons, 
brought the very formal announcement of the mar- 
riage of the Prince of Wales. The Minister and the 
President played their perfunctory parts with the 

268 



LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE 

utmost gravity, the former obeying the command of 
his gracious sovereign, the Queen, to make known 
to His Excellency the happy news that her son, the 
heir apparent, His Royal Highness, Albert Edward, 
etc., had wedded Her Royal Highness, the Princess 
Alexandra, etc., of Denmark. 

After the President had suitably acknowledged 
the receipt of the information, and begged that his 
congratulations be presented to Her Majesty, to 
the royal bride and groom, and the entire British 
nation, he paused, and then with a twinkle in his 
eye, added, "Lord Lyons, go thou and do likewise." 

The White House was not only a somber place 
in war time, but there was little or no opportunity 
for Lincoln to escape from its shadows. His was 
an administration without vacations. His only ref- 
uge through four hard years was in a little cottage 
at the Soldiers' Home, near the city. 

Sometimes he drove and sometimes rode between 
the two places. Secretary Stanton insisted on 
sending a mounted guard with him, their drawn 
sabers held upright. He protested time and again 
that these twenty-five or thirty cavalry outriders 
were a nuisance. "They make such a noise," he 
said, "Mrs. Lincoln and I cannot hear ourselves 
talk." 

Lincoln never felt free to visit his home in Illinois, 

269 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



or to take the least rest from his great task. He 
went to the front a few times to see his generals, 
and made two or three appearances at public meet- 
ings in the interest of the soldiers at near-by places. 
Aside from these rare exceptions, each day found 
him at his post. 

One day, a sister of Mrs. Lincoln, who was making 
a visit at the White House, insisted on taking him 
away from his desk, and she led him into the con- 
servatory, then attached to the mansion. As they 
walked among the flowers, he confessed he never 
had been in there before. The truth is, this man, 
in whose pathway of life there had been so many 
thorns, had little chance to cultivate a taste for 
flowers. 

When this lady, who was very near to Lincoln, 
in whose home he had courted and married, and 
whose gentle control over his wife in her frequent 
nervous disturbances he appreciated, left the White 
House to return to her family, she carried with 
her in her mind "the picture of the man's despair." 
Her sympathetic eye penetrated "beneath what the 
world saw," as she said, and found "a nature as 
tender and poetic as any I ever knew." 

Although Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln occupied a pew 
in a Presbyterian Church in Washington, he never 
was a member of any church. Theology did not 

270 





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|3» «- %*Jfe 






a 11 " itf 






^^ 






* • 






s& 










I * 


3 1 i 


^H 






'3 







From the collection of Frederick H. Meaerre, Esq., New York City 

Mary Todd Lincoln 

From a photograph by Brady when she was the mistress of the White House 



LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE 

interest him. Religion was, his wife said, "a kind 
of poetry in his nature." He has been quoted as 
saying to a member of Congress, who inquired why 
one possessing such a deep reverence and such a 
true ideal of Christian faith and morals, had not 
united with some church, "When any church will 
inscribe over its altar as its sole qualification for 
membership the Saviour's condensed statement of 
both law and gospel, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with 
all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself,' that 
church shall I join with all my heart and soul." 

Notwithstanding Mrs. Lincoln's wayward temper, 
her husband had a solid respect for her judgment. 
He felt a special reliance on her intuition regard- 
ing character, and in choosing men he sometimes 
accepted what he regarded as her superior knowl- 
edge of human nature. When she was absent, 
he was in the habit of sending her by telegraph 
the reports of battles and military movements. 
Although she is said not to have been prudent in 
money matters, he never denied or questioned her 
wish for anything. "You know what you want," 
he would say, "go get it." 

They lived their lives in Washington as simply 
as they could. Their servants followed the free 
and easy example set before them. One of them 

271 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



has been handed down to history as interrupting 
an important state conference by opening the Presi- 
dent's door and saying, "She wants you." "Yes, 
yes," Lincoln replied, without showing any sign 
of annoyance. The conference continuing, however, 
the door was soon opened again and the servant 
repeated with emphasis, "I say, she wants you." 

A man calling by appointment one Sunday 
morning and receiving no response when he rang the 
White House bell, opened the door, walked up- 
stairs, and, looking in vain for a servant to announce 
him, finally knocked at the door of the President's 
office. "Oh," explained Lincoln, "the boys are all 
out this morning." 

Presidential manners never were acquired by 
Lincoln. He had formed the habit of early rising 
when he lived in the backwoods, and always clung 
to it. One morning about six o'clock a passer-by saw 
him standing in the White House gateway. "Good 
morning, good morning," the President said, "I am 
looking for a newsboy. When you get to the corner, 
I wish you would send one up this way." 

He almost invariably wore slippers, in order to 
relieve himself of the long-legged boots of the time, 
and except in the appointed hours for receiving 
callers, he was likely to wear a dressing-gown, as 
he really hated clothes. He sometimes appeared 

272 



LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE 

in the streets wearing a faded linen duster, and in 
winter he often protected himself on going out by 
wrapping a gray shawl about his shoulders. 

He knew how to be correct in deportment when 
he deemed that occasion required it. A man who 
was present once when Charles Sumner called, 
has described the manner in which Lincoln received 
that self-conscious statesman. He dropped his long 
leg from the arm of the chair in which he was 
slouching at ease, rose and saluted with studied 
dignity his imposing caller, who carried a cane, 
and was arrayed in a brown coat and fancy waist- 
coat, checked lavender trousers, and a striking pair 
of spats. After the Senator had gone, Lincoln again 
relaxed with the remark, "When with the Romans 
we must do as the Romans do." 

His freest hours were passed among friends in his 
office in the evening, when he told stories with as 
hearty an enjoyment of their humor as if he were 
again in the lounging room of a tavern on the old cir- 
cuit. At such times his laughter resounded through 
the White House with a true ring, and care seemed 
to have fled the place. His comradeship ranged 
from a scientist of the eminence of Professor Joseph 
Henry of the Smithsonian Institute, who was among 
the earliest in Washington to appreciate his charac- 
ter, to Petroleum V. Nasby, the humorist. 
t 273 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Once among his callers came an elderly man from 
Indiana, whom he quickly recognized, though he had 
not seen him since boyhood. "You are John A. 
Brackenridge," Lincoln promptly said; "I used to 
walk thirty -four miles a day to hear you plead law 
in Booneville, and listening to your speeches first 
inspired me with the determination to be a lawyer." 

He was free from all vanity of official dignity. 
He shrank from wearing the high designation of 
President, and referred to his office as "this place," 
"since I have been in this place," or "since I came 
here." Once when needing to speak of the apart- 
ment reserved in the Capitol for the Chief Magis- 
trate, he shyly said, "that room, you know, that they 
call the President's room." He was genuinely an- 
noyed to have friends from Illinois address him 
as "Mr. President," and often pleaded, "Now call 
me Lincoln, and I'll promise not to tell of the breach 
of etiquette." 

Dennis Hanks, his old co-laborer in the woods 
of Indiana and on the prairies of Illinois, came to 
see him, all dressed up for the occasion, and Lin- 
coln quickly placed him at ease and on the equal 
footing of their early days when they slept together 
in the log-cabin. Dennis had been sent to influ- 
ence the President to release some Copperheads in 
Illinois, who had been in a riot against soldiers, 

274 



LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE 

and Lincoln gravely summoned Secretary Stanton 
to meet his visitor. He was cordially entertained, 
and before he went home Lincoln gave him a watch 
suitably engraved. 

In the course of a visit which Lincoln received 
from the old friend who had taken him in when he 
came to Springfield without money enough to buy 
a bed, and over whose store he slept, two women 
came to beg the President to release from jail two 
men who had been arrested for resisting the draft. 
He not only granted their request, but at one stroke 
of his pen liberated all who were in the jail with 
them for the same offence. "These fellows have 
suffered long enough," he said. 

As one of the women, an aged mother, was leaving, 
she said to him simply, "I shall probably never 
see you again until we meet in Heaven." This 
remark touched the President, and his friend told 
him he was too sensitive and nervous a man to 
expose himself to such trying scenes every day. 
"Things of the sort you have just seen don't hurt 
me," Lincoln protested; "it is the only thing to-day 
that has made me forget my condition or given me 
any pleasure." Then he added, "Die when I may, 
I want it said of me by those who know me best, 
that I always plucked a thistle and planted a flower 
where I thought a flower would grow." 

275 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



While Lincoln read little, one form of relief for 
his mind was to read aloud to two or three friends. 
He delighted thus to read from Shakespeare, and 
Holmes's "Last Leaf" took its place among his 
favorites, its most familiar stanza particularly ap- 
pealing to his melancholy mood : — 

"The mossy marbles rest 
On the lips that he has prest 

In their bloom; 
And the names he loved to hear 
Have been carved for many a year 
On the tomb." 

John Hay, one of his secretaries, said Lincoln 
was not a man to laugh alone. If he found some- 
thing that much amused him in a volume of Tom 
Hood, for instance, he would get out of bed, where 
he often read, stalk through the hall in his night- 
clothes, and wake up his secretary, that he might 
read aloud the passage which had pleased him. 
In writing, he relied on his ear more than on his 
eye. It was his custom to form a sentence in his 
mind and then speak it, perhaps in a whisper, be- 
fore putting it on paper. 

Lincoln's office was almost his prison cell for 
four years. His day there usually began as early as 
eight o'clock and lasted until bedtime. If he were 
not at his desk, it was safe to look for him poring 

276 



LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE 



over the despatches from the armies, in the tele- 
graph office of the War Department, which he fairly 
haunted. 

Often he did not leave his work long enough to 
eat his meals. When he went to the dining table, 
he was not unlikely to sit there lost in thought, 
without taking note of what he ate. He could not 
tell as he left his breakfast whether he had drunk 
coffee or milk. A very light diet sufficed him, 
and even this he neglected. Mrs. Lincoln and the 
servants were obliged to watch him to see that he 
did not entirely forget to eat, and when he failed 
to come to the dining room, they would send a 
tray to him in his office. A glass of milk and a few 
crackers or a little fruit satisfied his appetite. 

In spite of his carelessness in this respect, he 
kept himself in remarkable physical condition. 
His muscles held their hardness. He could grip an 
axe by the tip end of its handle and hold it out even 
with his shoulder. He remained always a hardy 
and not ungraceful horseback rider. 

From the windows of his office he could see at 
first the Confederate flags flying, but later the dis- 
tant view was filled with the white tents of the Union 
soldiers on the hills of Virginia. Near by stood 
the unfinished Washington monument. War maps 
hung on the walls, and his table was covered so deep 

277 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



with papers that it was not always possible for him 
to find room to rest his hand while signing his name 
to a document. "I am like the Patagonians," he 
said with a laugh once, as he hunted for a place 
where he could write. "You know they live off" 
oysters and throw the shells out the window. When 
the pile of shells grows so high as to shut in the win- 
dow, they simply move and build a new house." 

Notwithstanding the volume of business trans- 
acted in the White House in his administration, he 
never found fault with a member of his clerical staff". 
He was content to work longer hours than any sub- 
ordinate and to spare every one but himself. 

The task, which to many would have been the 
most wearing, was to him the most welcome. This 
was the task of receiving the people. He finished 
his reception to privileged persons, senators, rep- 
resentatives, and officials at noon, and then except 
on the two cabinet days each week the door was 
thrown open, and the waiting crowd rushed in 
from the hall, the anteroom, and the stairway. 

In the motley mass were office seekers, crippled 
veterans, fathers and mothers and wives of soldiers 
in trouble, widows and orphans of those who had 
fallen in battle, inventors and cranks and all sorts 
of advisers, along with citizens who came merely 
to grasp the President's hand and give him a word of 

278 



LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE 

good cheer. They found him in his black broadcloth 
suit, sitting in his arm-chair beside a table on which 
a Bible lay. 

He insisted there should be no secrets. "St. 
Helena ? Why, we don't have a consul there," he 
said in a voice heard by all, as he replied to the 
whispers of an eager man who leaned over him. 
The man continued to whisper, and Lincoln con- 
tinued to tell him in his high-pitched tone that he 
did not believe there was such an office. 

"Yes, there is," the old messenger of the White 
House finally broke in to say, from his position be- 
side the door. "We have a consul at St. Helena, 
and he's a fellow that Buchanan appointed." Lin- 
coln did not rebuke this interruption, but began to 
write on a little pad. When he had finished he tore 
off the slip, and before handing it to his caller read 
it aloud : — 

"Dear Gov. Seward: — If there be a consul at 
St. Helena — 'mind you,' he added to the man, 
'I don't wholly give up my contention' — I wish 
you would appoint the bearer, particularly because 
he comes from Thad Stevens, who has not troubled 
us much of late. "A.Lincoln." 

He had infinite patience with bores. A weather 
prophet gained his attention, for Lincoln was always 

279 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



credulous in such matters, and he gave the man's 
prophecies a fair trial. Finally, after several dis- 
appointments, he wrote to the prophet declining to 
see him again, because he had predicted it would 
not rain for a month, and a ten-hour downpour set 
in within two or three days. 

He did not hesitate to protect himself, when it 
seemed to him patience had ceased to be a virtue. 
One insulting visitor, an army officer, who had 
been cashiered and who was blind to gentler re- 
proof, overstepped all bounds. Lincoln seized him 
by the collar and marched him to the door. 

On the whole, he derived much profit from his 
practice of keeping open house. In the first place, 
he genuinely enjoyed the occasion. Human nature 
delighted him. All who came into his presence 
felt that he was interested in them, and not hold- 
ing himself above them. The man fairly breathed 
equality. 

His natural, unconscious democracy was reflected 
in a story he told of a dream he had. He dreamed 
he was in some great assembly, and the people drew 
back to let him pass, whereupon he heard some one 
say, "He is a common-looking fellow." In his 
dream, Lincoln turned to the man and said, "Friend, 
the Lord prefers common-looking people; that is 
why He made so many of them." 

280 






LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE 

Those who approached him in awe of his station 
were instantly at ease as they came to him and ready 
to confide in him, as in a friend. No honest man 
was abashed in his presence or humbled himself 
as he greeted him. On his part, if he could do 
a kindness to a simple person, with no powerful 
influence behind him, he was happy. 

He called these receptions his "public opinion 
baths," because he said he came out of them reno- 
vated and invigorated in his sense of responsibility 
and duty. "No hours of my day," he reasoned, 
"are better employed than those which bring me 
again within the direct contact and the atmosphere 
of the average of our whole people." Officials are in 
danger of becoming merely official, and of forgetting 
that they hold power only for others. Meeting the 
people in the free way that he did, served, he said, 
"to renew in me a clearer and more vivid image 
of that great popular assemblage out of which I 
sprang and to which I must return." 

The first principle of Lincoln's wonderful leader- 
ship was to keep always in touch with the people. 
Absorbed in his duties, he lost the habit of news- 
paper reading, and once when urged to read some 
editorial comments on a subject, he replied, "I know 
more about it than any of them." He went neither 
to editors nor to senators to learn public opinion, 

281 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



and he repeatedly showed that his judgment of it 
was more correct than theirs. 

"I don't want to know what Washington thinks 
about it," he said to a man who was telling him of 
opinion in Congress. He preferred to deal directly 
with the people. When he had anything to say to 
them, he knew how to say it in a way they would 
surely understand. " Billy, don't shoot too high," 
he used to caution Herndon, his old law partner. 
The people knew, too, that when he spoke, it was 
to some purpose other than to hear himself talk. 
"I am very little inclined on any occasion," he re- 
marked, "to say anything unless I hope to produce 
some good by it." 

To a regiment which he reviewed he made an 
appeal for the Union that brought the cause home 
to every fireside: "I happen temporarily to occupy 
this big White House. I am a living witness that 
any one of your children may look to come here 
as my father's child has. It is in order that each 
one of you may have through this free government 
which we have enjoyed an open field and a fair 
chance . . . that the struggle should be maintained, 
that we may not lose our birthright. . . ." 

When some workingmen from New York called, 
they saw in him a fellow-laborer, who personified 
the opportunity for which the republic stands. 

282 



LIFE IN THE WHITE HOUSE 

"The strongest bond of human sympathy," Lincoln 
told them, "outside of the family relation, should 
be one uniting all working people, of all nations 
and tongues and kindred," but not to war upon 
property. "Let not him," he said, "who is house- 
less pull down the house of another, but let him 
labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by 
example assuring that his own shall be safe from 
violence when built." 

In him the multitude saw themselves in the White 
House, for his virtues were all simple ones, as likely 
to be found among common men as in any grade 
of life, — truth, temperance, courage, and wisdom. 
James Russell Lowell, in the middle of Lincoln's 
term, drew from his example the lesson that " a pro- 
found common sense is the best genius for states- 
manship." 

Lincoln influenced the people far more than they 
influenced him in whatever intercourse he had with 
them. He was not in any sense a " President with 
his ear to the ground." He needed to consult 
only his own instincts in order to know the people's, 
for he could feel, as Emerson said, "the pulse of 
twenty million throbbing in his heart." 



283 



CHAPTER XXVII 

LINCOLN AND HIS CHILDREN 



His sympathetic attitude toward youth. — "Tad" and "Willie" 
with their pets and at play in the White House. — Their shouts 
always welcome in the ears of their care-burdened father, and 
their intrusions never resented. — Willie's death, February 20, 
1862, and Lincoln's grief. — "The hardest trial of my life." 

— Little Tad, the President's only chum in the dark days 
of war time. — Stanton made him a lieutenant. — Lincoln's 
modest application to Grant in behalf of his son Robert. 

— Tad and the office seekers. — Falling asleep nightly beside 
his father at work. 

Children liked Lincoln. Their keen eyes seemed 
to penetrate his sad and rugged countenance and 
see the good-natured man behind it. Simple per- 
sons, young as well as old, instinctively felt a kin- 
ship with him and stood in no awe of him. Babies 
in their mothers' arms reached out trustingly toward 
him, and romping youngsters were not stilled in 
his presence. He delighted in their bold freedom 
and did not care if they were noisy. 

He looked upon the hard privations of his own boy- 
hood as an example to be avoided and not followed. 
For that reason, he was not given to preaching 
from the familiar text, "When I was a boy I had to 
do this and that." 

284 



LINCOLN AND HIS CHILDREN 

His four children were all boys: Robert Todd, 
born August I, 1843; Edward Baker, born March 
10, 1846, died in infancy; William Wallace, born 
December 21, 1850, died in the White House, Feb- 
ruary 20, 1862; Thomas, born April 4, 1853, died 
in Chicago, July 15, 1871. 

But one of the boys lived to manhood. The oldest, 
Robert, was a student at Harvard while Lincoln was 
President. Only William and Thomas, or "Willie" 
and "Tad," as he called them, were with their father 
in the White House. 

The former was ten and the latter eight years old 
when they went to live in the stately old mansion 
of the Presidents. They had been brought up in a 
plain home in a little town out on the prairies of 
Illinois, where they were free to play in the streets 
and on the "commons" with other boys. When 
their father became President of the United States 
and they moved into the White House, they refused 
to change their independent manners and habits. 

They each had a goat, and they hitched their 
horned steeds to big chairs and drove them up and 
down the hall. They had dogs which they harnessed 
and drove in the winding paths of the White House 
grounds. Two ponies in the presidential stable were 
theirs, and mounted on them they galloped along 
the avenues of the capital. They gave shows in 

285 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



the attic of the mansion among the historic rubbish, 
stowed away there by a dozen Presidents in the 
past. 

Their shouts at play were the only notes of joy 
that came to the ears of their care-burdened father. 
Their voices, however loud, did not annoy him, 
and he never seemed to be impatient of their in- 
trusions upon him, no matter how grave might be 
the business which he had in hand. Often he went 
out into the grounds and joined in their games, 
regardless of his dignity and the amazement of the 
lookers-on. Sometimes he played ball with them 
and their playmates, running the bases with his long 
legs as if he had no other purpose in life. 

When a cat belonging to one of his sons had kittens 
and a dog belonging to the other had pups, both 
events occurring on the same day, he shared the 
children's excitement and announced the stirring 
news to senators and generals as they called on 
matters of state. 

His two little boys were Lincoln's closest com- 
panions after he went to the White House, and were 
more intimate with him than any member of the 
cabinet. In their first winter there they both fell 
sick, and at the same time Mrs. Lincoln was con- 
fined to her bed. It was in a dark period, when 
the nation itself was believed to be lying at death's 

286 



LINCOLN AND HIS CHILDREN 

door. The President was overwhelmed by his 
anxieties, private and public. He sat up with his 
boys through the nights and went about his heavy 
official duties by day. 

Willie died, and his father's heart was torn with 
grief. "This is the hardest trial of my life," he 
confessed to the nurse, and in a spirit of rebellion 
this man, overweighted with cares and sorrows, 
cried out: "Why is it ? Why is it ?" 

He strove like a little child to learn to say, 
"Thy will be done," while the lifeless body of his 
loved boy lay in the Green Room, beneath his 
office. For weeks the battle raged in his breast, 
and one day in each of those weeks while the struggle 
lasted he surrendered to his grief, dropping his work 
and wrapping himself in gloom. Mrs. Lincoln, 
meanwhile, sought to console herself by attempting 
to communicate with the spirit of her dead child 
through a medium and his table rappings and slate 
writings in a darkened room. 

A vision of the youth came to Lincoln several 
nights in his dreams, and gave him a certain melan- 
choly pleasure. In good time, however, the dark 
passion which had clouded his nature was entirely 
thrown off, and a nobler philosophy ruled him. 
Doubtless the fortitude he gained in this time of 
suffering became a part of that heroic faith in the 

287 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



man which lifted him above the general despair 
when his country's fortunes sank the lowest. 

After Willie's death, little Tad received a double 
share of his father's affection. Generally they slept 
together, and no time or place was sacred from 
the boy. He was free to interrupt his father on any 
occasion and to crawl over him even at a meeting 
of the Cabinet. The President liked to go through 
picture books with him, and laughed carelessly 
when teachers or tutors complained that he did not 
pay enough attention to his school books. 

The boy was all the dearer to his father because 
of an impediment in his speech, due to a defective 
palate. This was overcome as he grew older, but 
when he was a little fellow he could hardly make 
himself understood by strangers. 

Even Secretary Stanton, who was so stern with 
men, had a weakness for Tad. One day the Secre- 
tary of War pretended to appoint him a lieuten- 
ant in the army. The boy took the honor in dead 
earnest, and soon contrived somehow to fit himself 
out in a uniform appropriate to his rank. The little 
lieutenant was fond of drilling and eating with the 
President's guard of soldiers. 

Taking it into his head to relieve them one night, 
he sent away the squad on duty and proceeded to 
organize a new guard from among the laborers about 

288 




nf Frederick II. Meserve, Esq.., New Vmk City 

Lincoln and Tad 

From a photograph made in Washington 



LINCOLN AND HIS CHILDREN 

the White House. The affair was excitedly brought 
to the President's attention, but the Commander- 
in-chief was moved to laughter rather than censure. 
In at least one great review of the army down in 
Virginia, this youngest lieutenant, mounted on a 
horse, rode behind his father and the commanding 
general as they galloped along the line of cheering 
troops. 

While Tad gained his military rank without em- 
ploying his father's influence, his brother Robert 
owed his commission in the army to the President's 
intercession with General Grant. The shyness 
with which Lincoln, who showered shoulder straps 
by the thousands, hinted for this little favor from 
his general lends peculiar interest to his applica- 
tion : " Please read and answer this letter as though 
I was not President, but only a friend. My son, 
now in his twenty-second year, having graduated 
at Harvard, wishes to see something of the war 
before it ends. I do not wish to put him in the 
ranks, nor yet to give him a commission to which 
those who have already served long are better en- 
titled and better qualified to hold. 

"Could he, without embarrassment to you or 

detriment to the service, go into your military 

family with some nominal rank, I, and not the 

public, furnishing his necessary means ? If no, say 

u 289 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



so without the least hesitation, because I am as anx- 
ious and as deeply interested that you shall not be 
encumbered as you can be yourself." 

The President's letters and telegrams to his wife, 
when she and Tad were absent from Washington, 
were almost always laden with some piece of infor- 
mation for Tad's special benefit. In one such com- 
munication he noted that "Nanny was found resting 
herself and chewing; her little cud on the middle of 
Tad's bed," and again he sent this message by 
telegraph, "Tell Tad the goats and father are very 
well, especially the goats." 

Perhaps the strangest document in all the volumes 
of the Complete Works of Abraham Lincoln is a 
telegram in reference to Tad : — 

"Executive Mansion, June 9, 1863. 

"Mrs. Lincoln, Philadelphia, Pa.: 

"Think you had better put Tad's pistol away. 
I had an ugly dream about him. 

"A. L." 

The son had the father's active sympathies. He 
used to get up little fairs of his own, at which he 
held sales for the aid of the sick and wounded 
soldiers. Sometimes he went into the crowd of 
office seekers, who were always at the White House, 
and solicited money for the same good end. He had 

290 



LINCOLN AND HIS CHILDREN 

a habit of going among the people in the halls and 
waiting room and learning their wants. Now and 
then when they touched his pity or appealed to his 
sense of justice, he promptly led them into the 
presence of the President. 

In the evening, it was Tad's custom to go to 
his father and make a report of all he had seen 
and done since morning. As a rule he fell asleep 
in the midst of his prattle, and then Lincoln turned 
again to his labors, his boy lying on the floor beside 
his desk. When the President's own long day was 
done, he took the sleeping child on his shoulder and 
carried him to bed. 



291 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

LINCOLN AND HIS SOLDIERS 



Indifferent to the pomp and glory of war, this commander of a 
million men in arms held himself no more than the equal of 
the least among them. — His deference to the men in the ranks 
and their love for Father Abraham. — Visiting the sick and 
wounded. — His interview with a blind soldier. — Heeding a 
baby's appeal. — His beautiful tribute to a bereaved mother. — 
Looking into the camp kettle. — His courage in the face of the 
enemy. — "There are already too many weeping widows." — His 
hatred of Fridays. — A friend of the coward. — " Leg cases." — 
Pity for a condemned slave-trader. — Lincoln and the sleeping 
sentinel. — The boy who paid the President's bill. 

" O, slow to smite and swift to spare, 
Gentle and merciful and just ! 
Who, in the fear of God, didst bear 

The sword of power — a nation's trust!" 

— William Cullen Bryant. 

Lincoln's life was filled with striking contrasts. 
For this careless captain of a company of unruly 
rustics in the Black Hawk War to become the 
Commander-in-chief of a million soldiers, a mightier 
force of warriors than any conquering monarch 
of modern times ever assembled, was perhaps the 
strangest fortune that befell him. In four years he 
called to his command two and a half millions of 
men, probably a greater number than followed the 

292 



LINCOLN AND HIS SOLDIERS 

eagles of Napoleon in all his twenty years of cam- 
paigning from Areola to Waterloo. 
- Yet this unparalleled martial power never touched 
the ambition of Lincoln. He cared nothing for the 
pomp of arms, the pride of rank, or the glory of 
war. This man who could say to ten hundred 
thousand armed troops, go, and they would go, 
come, and they would come, held himself to be 
no more than the equal of the least among them. 
While he stood toward all as a comrade rather than 
a commander, they looked up to him in perfect trust, 
and delighted to hail him as Father Abraham. 

It was enough for him to touch his hat to a general, 
but he liked to bare his head to the boys in the ranks. 
He himself created generals by the hundreds, but 
in his eyes the private soldier was the handiwork of 
the Almighty. The reported capture of an officer 
and twelve army mules in a raid near Washington 
only moved him to remark, "How unfortunate! 
I can fill that brigadier's place in five minutes, but 
those mules cost us two hundred dollars apiece." 
He never to the end solved the mystery of the uni- 
forms, and could not tell a general from a colonel 
by his epaulettes. 

If he passed the White House guard twenty times 
a day, he always saluted its members. He knew by 
name every man in the company which watched 

293 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



over him in his rest at the Soldiers' Home, and was 
the real friend of all, heartily enjoying an occasional 
cup of coffee at their mess and the little jokes they 
played on one another. If any were missing, he 
noticed their absence, and if they were sick, he never 
forgot to ask about them. 

The many military hospitals, crowded with human 
suffering, that sprang up in Washington, were his 
special care. He visited and cheered the wounded, 
pausing beside their cots of pain, bending upon them 
his pitying gaze and laying his great hand tenderly 
on their fevered brows. He remembered and 
watched those who were in peril of death, and 
eagerly welcomed any signs of improvement in their 
condition, while he joked with those who were well 
enough to take a joke. 

Once as he drove up to a hospital, Lincoln saw 
one of the inmates walking directly in front of his 
team, and he cried out to the driver to stop. The 
horses were checked none too soon to avoid running 
the man down. Then Lincoln saw that the poor 
fellow, only a boy, had been shot in both eyes. 
He got out of his carriage and, taking the blind 
soldier by the hand, asked him in quavering tones 
for his name, his service, and his residence. "I am 
Abraham Lincoln," he himself said, as he was 
leaving, and the sightless face of the youth was lit 

294 



LINCOLN AND HIS SOLDIERS 

up with gratitude as he listened to the President's 
words of honest sympathy. 

The next day the chief of the hospital laid in the 
boy's hands a commission as first lieutenant in the 
army of the United States, bearing the President's 
signature, and with it an order retiring him on three- 
fourths pay for all the years of helplessness that, 
until then, had stretched before him through a hope- 
less future. 

The sympathy of most men who get to be presi- 
dents, governors, or statesmen can be reached only 
through their heads. It becomes a thing of the 
mind, filtered and cooled by an intellectual process. 
Lincoln's sympathies always remained where nature 
herself placed them, in the heart, and thence they 
freely flowed, unhindered by reflection and calcu- 
lation. Kindness with him was an impulse and 
not a duty. His benevolence was far from scientific, 
yet he was so shrewd a judge of human nature that 
he seldom was cheated. 

The stone walls of the White House no more 
shut him in from his fellows, from the hopes and 
sorrows, the poverty and the pride of the plain 
people, than did the unhewn logs behind which 
he shivered and hungered in his boyhood home. 
A mother's tears, a baby's cry, a father's plea, an 
empty sleeve, or a crutch never failed to move him. 

295 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



A woman weeping in a hall of the War De- 
partment with a baby in her arms, disturbed him, 
and he could not put the affecting picture out 
of his thoughts. Learning that she was crying be- 
cause she could not be permitted under the rules 
to go to her husband in the Army of the Potomac, 
and show him their first born which the father never 
had seen, he caused the Department to summon 
the soldier to Washington by telegraph, and a bed 
in one of the hospitals to be assigned to the mother 
and child. This good deed done, the great simple 
man was happy for the rest of the day. 

A soldier who did not appeal to him at all, but 
whose angry curses on the government he chanced 
to hear while walking along a path in the White 
House grounds, gained his aid. The President, 
seating himself at the foot of a tree, examined the 
man as to his grievance, and gave him an order 
which promptly brought him the pay he had been 
unable to draw. 

His wonderful patience was most wonderful in 
his bearing toward all who wore the blue. They 
came to him in perfect trust, when colonels and 
generals and bureau chiefs and the Secretary of 
War were deaf to them. With the great burden of 
the nation on his shoulders, he always stopped to 
listen to their tales of trouble, although, as he said, 

296 



LINCOLN AND HIS SOLDIERS 

he might as well have tried to bail out the Potomac 
with a teaspoon as to go into every detail of the 
administration of a vast army. 

Once when disaster was on every hand, and he 
was overborne with care, he reproved a man, who 
had been refused by every one else, for following 
him to the Soldiers' Home, his only refuge, and 
sent him away. Early the next morning, after a 
night of remorse, he went to the man's hotel, begged 
his forgiveness for treating "with rudeness one who 
had offered his life for his country " and was in 
sore trouble. Taking him in his carriage, the Presi- 
dent saw him through his difficulties. When he 
told Secretary Stanton what he had done, the Sec- 
retary himself apologized for having rejected the 
appeal in the first instance. 

"No, no," said Lincoln, "you did right in ad- 
hering to your rules. If we had such a soft-hearted 
old fool as I am in your place, there would be no 
rules that the army or the country could depend 
on. 

When he heard of a poor widow in Massachusetts, 
a working woman who, it was reported, had lost 
five sons in battle, he sat down and wrote her one 
of the most beautiful letters of condolence that a 
hand ever was inspired to write: — 

"I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word 
297 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



of mine which should attempt to beguile you from 
the grief of a loss so overwhelming, but I cannot 
refrain from tendering to you the consolation that 
may be found in the thanks of the republic they 
died to save. 

" I pray our Heavenly Father may assuage the 
anguish of your bereavements and leave only the 
cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the 
solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so 
costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom." 

Whenever he visited an army, he showed his 
unfailing interest in the enlisted men, going among 
them, and even looking into their camp kettles to 
see how they were fed. "General," he said to 
Butler, "I should like to ride along the lines and see 
the boys and how they are situated." Accordingly 
he and the General rode until they were within 
three hundred yards of the enemy's pickets. The 
latter heard the Union troops cheering their Presi- 
dent, and saw his tall figure as he sat in his saddle. 
Butler was uneasy and said, "You are in a fair 
rifle shot of the rebels, and they may open fire on 
you." He wished him to turn away. Lincoln 
laughed and replied, "The Commander-in-chief 
of the army must not show any cowardice in the 
presence of his soldiers, whatever he may feel." 
And he kept on until he had covered the entire 

298 



LINCOLN AND HIS SOLDIERS 

line of intrenchments, some six miles or more in 
length. 

It was for the men in the trenches that he felt the 
Union must be saved. He was not striving to per- 
petuate it for the sake of the business interests of 
the country, for the benefit of the prosperous. He 
believed the downfall of the Union, the overthrow 
of a government by the people, would be a heavy 
if not a fatal blow to the multitude the world over, 
to "the last best hope of earth." Each man can 
look upon the universe only with his own eyes. 
Lincoln saw how freely the democratic institutions 
of the United States had permitted him to rise, and 
this was the ideal which he cherished for the Union. 

"Gold is good in its place, but living, brave, and 
patriotic men are better than gold," he said. His 
Secretary of the Treasury complained of him, that 
he never once asked to see the treasury figures, to 
see how the money was coming in and going out 
to carry on the war. His Secretary of War, on the 
other hand, continually complained of him for inter- 
fering with that department, in his effort to protect 
private soldiers. The generals echoed this pro- 
test. Indeed, the only criticism of Lincoln's 
own direct use of his despotic authority which 
stands to-day is of his lavish exercise of the par- 
doning power. 

299 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



This interest on his part was no fickle, unsteady 
freshet of gushing sentimentality which overflowed 
one day and dried up the next, no alternating current 
of strength and weakness. Mercy flowed in a con- 
stant stream from its fountain in his great heart, 
nourishing the fragrant flower of charity under the 
withering blasts of war. 

The eye, in running over the printed pages of 
his official correspondence, is forever coming upon 
traces of this persistent quality of the man. "If 
you have not yet shot Dennis McCarthy, don't." 
"Has he been a good soldier, except the desertion? 
About how old is he ?" "I do not like this punish- 
ment of withholding pay; it falls so very hard upon 
poor families." These several quotations from de- 
spatches sent by Lincoln are a few out of scores 
of similar inquiries and instructions which may be 
seen in casually turning the leaves of his published 
writings. 

Commanders in the field implored him to withhold 
his hand, and scolded him because he would not 
leave them free to apply the stern measures they 
deemed necessary to the discipline of the military 
machine. He never could forget, however, that 
a volunteer army after all is a human machine, 
and it was his faith that love conquers more than 
fear. Every soldier who carried a musket was as 

300 



LINCOLN AND HIS SOLDIERS 

a son of his. All were his children, and hardly 
more than children were the defenders of the Union. 

Of the two and a half million enlistments, more 
than two million were of boys under twenty-one; 
more than a million of the soldiers were not even 
eighteen; eight hundred thousand went into the 
army before they were seventeen, two hundred 
thousand before they were sixteen, and one hundred 
thousand before they were fifteen years old. 

"There are already too many weeping widows," 
Lincoln insisted to one of those who protested, 
when forbidden to shoot twenty-four deserters in 
a row; "for God's sake, don't ask me to add to 
the number, for I won't do it." "They are shoot- 
ing a boy to-day," he was heard to say once. "I 
hope I have not done wrong to allow it." He hated 
Fridays. As he turned to a heap of sentences lying 
on his table one Thursday, he said, "To-morrow is 
butcher's day, and I must go through these papers 
and see if I can't find some excuse to let these poor 
fellows off." 

He was honest about it. He did not pretend to 
apply any strict rules of justice. "I think this boy 
can do us more good above ground than under 
ground," was his reason in one instance. "The 
case of Andrews is really a very bad one," was his 
indorsement on a commutation, and he admitted 

301 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



he commuted the sentence solely "because I am 
trying to evade the butchering business." 

The coward found a friend in this brave man. 
Convictions on the black charge of "cowardice in 
the face of the enemy " he lightly called "leg cases." 
"If," he demanded of a frowning army officer, 
"God Almighty gives a man a cowardly pair of 
legs, how can he help their running away with him ?" 
A pigeon-hole in his desk was crowded with these 
"leg cases" of men who had run away, but who 
were suffered by Lincoln to live to fight another 
day. 

His hand, so ready to spare, paused above the death 
writ of a convicted slave-trader, as he sadly remarked, 
"Do you know how hard it is to have a human being 
die when you feel that a stroke of your pen will 
save him ?" Even this heinous offender was not 
barred from his large pity as a brother man. He 
delayed the execution from the fear that in the 
man's delusive hope of pardon he had not prepared 
himself for death, and he admonished him in the 
days of grace which he gave him "to refer himself 
to the mercy of the common God and Father of 
all men." 

To his friend, David Davis, the presiding judge 
of the old circuit, whom he lifted to the bench of 
the supreme court of the United States, he once 

302 



LINCOLN AND HIS SOLDIERS 

said he did not believe in killing, and that if the 
world had no butcher but himself, it would go 
bloodless. 

He was open to appeals for clemency at any time 
and in any place. One man went to him late 
at night, after he had gone to bed, and he sat 
down in his night-clothes and wrote the order sus- 
pending the execution of a nineteen-year-old boy 
for sleeping at his post. The boy was to be shot 
the next morning, and Lincoln was so troubled by 
the fear that his telegram might go astray he rose 
and dressed and went to the War Department in 
order to get into direct telegraphic communication 
with the army in the field. Once when he was 
disturbed by a like fear he was not content until 
he had repeated his order by telegraph to four 
persons. 

A condemned man did not need any powerful 
influence in his behalf. "If he has no friend, I'll 
be his friend," Lincoln said as he stopped the 
shooting of a soldier. 

To a woman who pleaded for her brother's life, 
Lincoln said, "My poor girl, you have come here 
with no governor, or senator, or member of Con- 
gress to speak in your cause; you seem honest and 
truthful, and you don't wear hoops, and I'll be 
whipped if I don't pardon him." "God bless 

3°3 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



President Lincoln " was the written inscription under 
a photograph of Lincoln which was found in the 
pocket of a dead soldier after the battle of Freder- 
icksburg. By the President's mercy he had been 
spared a dishonorable death to die on the field of 
honor. 

The oft-told story of Lincoln and the sleeping 
sentinel has the power to move the heart far more 
than any feat of arms in the Civil War. The senti- 
nel was a young soldier from Vermont, who was con- 
demned to die in a camp near Washington because 
he had fallen asleep while on guard duty. The 
offence was particularly serious at the time, because 
the safety of the capital depended on the watch- 
fulness of the sentries. The officials determined to 
make an example of the Green Mountain youth. 
Every effort to save him had failed when the 
captain and the members of his company, all neigh- 
bors of the doomed offender, went to the White 
House and saw Lincoln. 

A few hours afterward the boy was astonished 
to receive a visit from the President of the United 
States, who asked him about his parents, their farm, 
his work, and his life generally. He told the Presi- 
dent the simple story of his old home among the hills, 
and took from his pocket a picture of his mother. 
Lincoln told him he was too good a boy to be shot 

3°4 



LINCOLN AND HIS SOLDIERS 

for merely falling asleep once. He himself had been 
brought up on a farm and knew how hard it must 
be for a country boy to keep awake nights when 
new to army habits and duties. He promised to free 
him, but he would have to present a heavy bill for 
his services. 

The soldier's happy face reflected a grateful heart. 
He was sure his father would raise what money he 
could by mortgaging the farm and pay the charge. 
Lincoln said that would not be enough; the boy alone 
could pay the bill and only by proving himself to 
be as brave and faithful as any soldier of the Union. 
His hand rested on the head and his kindly eyes 
looked full into the honest face of the boy, who 
pledged his life that he would not disappoint his 
benefactor. 

The President's bill was presented not long 
afterward. It was in the Peninsular Campaign and 
in the boy's first battle. In a desperate charge across 
a river and upon some blazing rifle pits he was among 
the first to face and among the last to turn his back 
on the enemy. When retreat was sounded, he swam 
in safety to the friendly bank of the stream. 

But he felt he had not yet paid the President's 

bill. He plunged into the water again and again, 

and swam to and fro under the shot of the foe in 

the work of rescuing wounded comrades, until he 

x 3°5 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



had brought back the last of them, but with a bullet 
in his own loyal breast. Then he was ready to close 
his account with earth. He had paid the President's 
bill in full, and with his dying breath he blessed the 
mercy of Lincoln for trusting him and permitting 
him to give his life for the Union. 



306 



CHAPTER XXIX 

LINCOLN THE EMANCIPATOR 



His life-long hatred of slavery. — Why he was not an Abolitionist. 

— His courage and wisdom in resisting rash counsels. — Could 
not free the slaves as President, but only as Commander-in- 
chief and as a military, not as a moral measure. — General 
Butler's declaration that slaves were contraband of war, May, 
1861. — Lincoln's effort to promote gradual, compensated 
emancipation in the border states. — The slaves in the District 
of Columbia emancipated by Congress, April 16, 1862. — 
Lincoln first announced to his cabinet, July 22, 1862, his 
purpose to proclaim emancipation in warring states. — Writing 
the Proclamation in secret. — His vow to God. — A strange 
scene in the cabinet room, Lincoln first reading from Artemus 
Ward, and then reading his Proclamation, September 22, 1862. 

— Emancipation of more than three million slaves proclaimed, 
January 1, 1863. — The Confederacy staggered. — One hun- 
dred and fifty thousand black troops for the Union in 1864. — 
The South driven to arming the negroes. — Lincoln's ideals 
for the freedmen. — His dread of a race problem. — The 
thirteenth amendment adopted by Congress, February I, 1865, 
and ratified by the states, December 18, 1865. 

Lincoln always hated slavery. Yet he never 
was an Abolitionist, for the Abolitionists who 
were ridiculed as long-haired men and short-haired 
women, or cranks, hated the Constitution and the 
Union as well as slavery. Because the Constitution 
recognized the existence of slavery and protected it 
within the states where it existed, they denounced 

3°7 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



it as a league with death and a covenant with hell. 
Despairing of the abolition of slavery within the 
Union, they loudly advocated disunion and the separa- 
tion of the North from the South. 

Lincoln, on the other hand, felt a deep passion 
for the Union, and it was his faith that the principles 
of liberty and equality, on which it was founded, 
would surely lead in the end to the gradual eman 
cipation of the slaves. He believed the nation 
would not permanently remain half free and half 
slave; that it would become either one thing or the 
other, and that under the inspiration of the Decla- 
ration of Independence and the democratic institu- 
tions of the republic, freedom would triumph. 

The Abolitionists did not support him when he 
was a candidate for President, and after he became 
President their eloquent orator, Wendell Phillips, 
described him as "the slave hound of Illinois." 
Lincoln was still for the Union above all else, for 
he felt if that were lost, the surest guarantee of 
freedom for white men as well as black would be 
lost. 

If he had permitted the Civil War to become 
at once a fight against slavery rather than a fight 
for the life of the Union, he would have driven 
from his side the slave states on the border and a 
majority of the people of the free states of the North 

308 



LINCOLN THE EMANCIPATOR 

as well. Moreover, he believed that he had no 
right under his oath of office to destroy slavery 
except to save the Union. 

A President in time of peace could not free the 
slaves any more than he could enter a man's house 
and take away something that lawfully belonged to 
him. Not as President, but only as Commander- 
in-chief of the army engaged in open war, could 
Lincoln emancipate the negroes, just as he could 
kill, burn, or confiscate whenever and wherever he 
thought he could thereby hurt the enemy and help 
the Union. 

In resisting the rash counsels of the radicals, Lin- 
coln showed a courage equal to his wisdom. He 
must seem to ignore the moral sentiment of the 
civilized world which was outraged by the institu- 
tion of slavery in a free country, and appear in- 
different to a cause which he had espoused in his 
youth. 

He could not fail to see, however, that freedom 
was on the way. No man could stop it, and it needed 
no encouragement. The South had made war in 
order to perpetuate slavery. As surely as the South 
lost, slavery would be lost. 

From the outset the army commanders were 
confronted with the question of what to do with the 
negroes who came within the Union lines. Some 

3°9 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



generals restored the slaves to their owners, while 
others went so far as to issue emancipation proc- 
lamations on their own responsibility. 

Both methods brought embarrassment to Lincoln. 
To return the runaways to slavery aroused in- 
dignation in the North and even in Europe, while 
to proclaim them free, alarmed the border states and 
the conservatives of the North. General Benjamin 
F. Butler found the happiest solution of all. He 
declared the negroes who came under his military 
jurisdiction "contraband of war," and held them 
just as any contraband article is held or treated in 
time of war. 

That fortunate phrase surmounted many diffi- 
culties, and "contrabands," as the fugitives came 
to be known in the speech of the day, flocked to 
the standard of freedom in increasing numbers. 
They dug trenches, threw up earthworks, and did 
all manner of labor for the Union armies. They 
were not free, however, in the cold eye of the law. 

As events continued to hasten the institution of 
bondage to its downfall, Lincoln did his utmost to 
prepare the Union slaveholders and their sympa- 
thizers for the inevitable end. He strove to put 
in operation a plan for paying the owners of slaves 
in the border states, and to gain their consent to 
a slow process of compensated emancipation. He 

310 



LINCOLN THE EMANCIPATOR 



pleaded earnestly with the representatives of those 
states in Congress, and he addressed the people 
themselves. "You cannot, if you would, be blind 
to the signs of the times," he warned them in a 
proclamation in the spring of 1862. 

Their prejudices against the abolition of slavery, 
however, clouded their vision, and his warning was 
unheeded. Congress, having power over the matter 
in the District of Columbia, passed a law for the 
compensated emancipation of the three thousand 
slaves at the capital, an act which Lincoln himself 
had proposed when he was a member of the House 
a dozen years before. 

A year of disaster to the national cause sealed 
the fate of slavery. The negro must be freed and 
called to the aid of the Union. Lincoln reasoned, 
"Often a limb must be amputated to save a life; 
but a life is never wisely given to save a limb." He 
must amputate slavery from the body of our in- 
stitutions in order to save the government itself 
from wreck. He would not emancipate the negroes 
because he personally wished to see all men free. 
To do that would be a violation of his oath. He 
would free them solely because he believed as Com- 
mander-in-chief of the army that their services 
had become a military necessity. 

As in every important transaction in his life, he 

3 11 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



kept his own counsel while waiting and watching 
for the time to act. He listened to those who ad- 
dressed him on the subject and discussed" it with 
them; but he told no one of his purpose. In mid- 
summer of 1862 he first informed his cabinet 
of his intention, but he was urged to wait. Mc- 
Clellan's army was at that time retreating down 
the peninsula from Richmond, and it was argued 
that if the step were taken then, the world would 
look upon it as an act of desperation. While he 
waited, Lincoln wrote the Proclamation in secret. 

A month after the President had confided his 
purpose to the cabinet, Horace Greeley spread on 
the page of the New York Tribune a stirring appeal 
for immediate emancipation. Lincoln answered 
the editor without disclosing the resolution which 
he had already taken. He still insisted on keeping 
before the people the one issue of saving the Union. 

" My paramount object," Lincoln wrote to Greeley, 
"is to save the Union, and not either to save or 
destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without 
freeing any slave, I would do it — ■ and if I could 
save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do it — and 
if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others 
alone, I would also do that. What I do about 
slavery and the colored race, I do because I believe 
it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I 

312 



LINCOLN THE EMANCIPATOR 

forbear because I do not believe it would help to 
save the Union." 

Several weeks later, a delegation of clergymen 
from Chicago came to press him to free all the slaves 
at once, and they said they had come in obedience 
to a Divine command. Lincoln answered that it 
seemed as if God would be more likely to reveal His 
will on this subject to him than to others, and he 
assured his callers, if he could learn what God 
wished him to do, he would do it. Even then 
the written Proclamation lay in his desk, still con- 
cealed from every eye save his own. 

A few days more and the battle of Antietam 
brought victory to the Union arms. Five days 
after that event there was a meeting of the cabinet. 
When all the members were in their seats, Lincoln 
told them Artemus Ward, the humorist, had sent 
him his latest book, and he would like to read a 
funny chapter from it. "High-handed Outrage at 
Utica " was the title of this chapter. One of the 
secretaries said he seemed to enjoy the reading of 
it very much, and that all the members smiled, 
"except Stanton." 

When the President had finished it, and finished 
his laugh over it, his face and his tone underwent 
an instant change. "Gentlemen," he said gravely, 
"when the rebel army was at Frederick, I determined 

3 l 3 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



as soon as it should be driven out of Maryland to 
issue a proclamation of emancipation such as I 
thought most likely to be useful. I said nothing 
to any one, but I made the promise to myself — and 
to my Maker. The rebel army is now driven out 
and I am going to fulfil that promise. I have got 
you together to hear what I have written down. 
I do not wish your advice about the main matter, 
for that I have determined for myself. This I say 
without intending anything but respect for any 
one of you." 

He confessed it might seem strange that he should 
have submitted the matter to the judgment of God, 
but the way was not clear to his own mind. Now 
that God had decided in favor of the slaves, he was 
satisfied the Proclamation was right. He asked 
the members, therefore, merely to consider the 
language of the document and not its purpose, for 
that had been fully and finally decided. 

He acknowledged that others in his place might 
do better than he could do. If he believed any 
one else more fully possessed the public confidence 
and there were a constitutional way in which that 
person could be placed in the presidential chair, 
he would gladly yield it to him. "I am here," 
he added; "I must do the best I can and bear the 
responsibility." 

3 J 4 



LINCOLN THE EMANCIPATOR 

If a scene like unto this ever was enacted in the 
cabinet room of the White House, before or since, 
it is not recorded in history. Opening with laughter 
over a roaring farce from the pen of Artemus Ward, 
shifting- in a twinkling; to the freeing of a race from 

o o o 

bondage, and concluding by a simple, humble con- 
fession of a childlike reliance on prayer, it affords 
in its contrasts a portrait of Lincoln as true as it is 
extraordinary. 

The Proclamation thus brought forth did not 
go into effect until the first of January following, 
and it promised freedom only to those negroes held 
to slavery in the states which at that date should still 
be at war with the Union. In other words, it gave 
the slaveholders one hundred days' grace, in which 
period, by bringing their states back into the Union, 
they could avert the emancipation of their slaves. 

The New Year came and with it the usual recep- 
tion by the President to the ministers from foreign 
nations, the justices of the courts, the members of 
the Senate and House, the officers of the army and 
navy, the chiefs of bureaus, and the public. This 
hard task finished, Lincoln seated himself to sign 
the final Emancipation Proclamation, declaring the 
slaves in the Confederate States thenceforward and 
forever free. 

As he took up his pen, his hand was stiff from the 
3*5 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



long ordeal of hand-shaking. He said he feared 
it would tremble so badly that posterity would 
look at his signature and say, "He hesitated." 
Yet, he declared, his whole soul was in it, and 
he remarked that if his name got into history at 
all, it would be for the act which he was about to 
complete. After resting his arm, he wrote his name 
at the bottom of the Proclamation with much care. 
Then examining his penmanship, he said with a 
smile, "That will do." 

The pen was given to a Massachusetts man, its 
handle gnawed by Lincoln's teeth, for it was his 
habit to hold his pen in his mouth while forming 
and rounding sentences in his mind before beginning 
them on paper. The Proclamation and his signa- 
ture he intended to preserve for himself and his 
heirs. When, however, he was asked to give it to a 
great fair in Chicago and let it be sold for the benefit 
of sick and wounded soldiers, he unselfishly parted 
with it. A generous sum of money, three thousand 
dollars, was realized by its sale at auction, but the 
document itself was destroyed in the conflagration 
which burned the larger part of Chicago eight years 
later. 

By the Proclamation more than three million of 
the four million slaves in the South were declared 
free. All those in the loyal border states, in Ten- 

316 



LINCOLN THE EMANCIPATOR 

nessee, and in the part of Louisiana held by the 
Union forces were excluded from its provisions, 
because, acting as Commander-in-chief of the army, 
the President could not interfere with slavery out- 
side the enemy's country. 

Lincoln's first purpose was to spread demoraliza- 
tion among the slaves of the Confederates, tempting 
the laborers who were tilling the fields and raising 
the crops which supported the Confederate army, 
and who besides were doing much of the heavy work 
in the construction of fortifications, to cease their 
labors and seek freedom within the Union lines. 
Wherever the Stars and Stripes appeared in the states 
of the Confederacy, slavery instantly perished. 
Everywhere the blacks hailed the advance of "Lin- 
kum's soldiers" as their deliverance from bondage. 

The next step after the issuance of the proclamation 
was to enroll negro troops and send them forth in 
the army of liberation. In the last critical period of 
the war, when the draft was necessary in the North 
and extravagant bounties had to be paid to white 
volunteers, there were one hundred and fifty thou- 
sand black men under arms, battling for the Union. 

Lincoln said of this new force, which the policy 
of emancipation had brought to the support of the 
government, " Keep it, and you can save the Union. 
Throw it away, and the Union goes with it." He 

3 J 7 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



was thoroughly convinced that only by calling in the 
help of the negroes could the life of the nation be 
preserved. 

The Confederacy reeled from the blow, when its 
full effect was felt, and the leaders of the South were 
enraged. Jefferson Davis denounced the Emancipa- 
tion Proclamation as the "most execrable measure 
recorded in the history of guilty man," and the Con- 
federate Congress enacted that any white officer cap- 
tured while commanding negro troops might be put 
to death. Some of the generals of the South an- 
nounced they would treat captured negro soldiers as 
they treated any other form of captured property. 
In a few instances black captives were massacred 
and an angry cry for retaliation arose in the North. 
Lincoln, however, said he could not bear the thought 
of killing southern prisoners of war for what other 
Southerners had done. He would not order the 
innocent shot as a punishment for the guilty. 

The time came when the South itself, in its ex- 
tremity, turned to the despised race. In November, 
1864, President Davis sent a message to his Congress, 
saying that rather than accept defeat the Confeder- 
ates would employ negro soldiers and reward them 
with freedom. General Lee and General Johnston 
both urged the adoption of such a plan, and finally, 
on the eve of the fall of Richmond, provision was 

318 



LINCOLN THE EMANCIPATOR 



made, by act of the Confederate Congress, for the 
enrolment of black troops under the Stars and Bars 
of a republic which had placed the slavery of the 
African race in its very corner-stone. Thus was Lin- 
coln's Emancipation Proclamation doubly justified 
as a military measure. 

Morally, Lincoln would have preferred to see the 
negroes freed, not at one stroke, but gradually. 
This was the ideal he expressed time and again, 
for he was always a very practical man. He dreaded 
sudden revolutions and their equally violent reac- 
tions. He feared the racial strife and the social 
problem which would follow any kind of emancipa- 
tion, and he even favored the experiment of sending 
the freedmen out of the South and colonizing them 
in Central America, or elsewhere. When he saw 
that this would not be done, he turned to the educa- 
tion of the liberated blacks as the best hope of fitting 
them to hold their own in a land where they had so 
long been in slavery. 

He favored no sweeping and radical plans. His 
purpose was to seek some slow but wise process, 
whereby "the two races could gradually live them- 
selves out of their old relation to each other, and both 
come out better prepared for the new." Universal 
negro suffrage did not strongly appeal to him. He 
preferred that the ballot should be placed only in the 

3 l 9 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



hands of the colored men who had fought for the 
Union, and the "very intelligent." Black voters of 
those classes, he thought, would "probably help in 
some trying time to come, to keep the jewel of liberty 
in the family of freedom." 

He continued to beg the people of the border 
states to complete the work of freeing the slaves by 
compensated emancipation. Millions of dollars were 
offered them in payment for their negroes, but the 
owners would not accept. The only course re- 
maining was the adoption of an amendment to the 
Constitution, forbidding slavery everywhere within the 
United States. 

After all the evil which the institution had wrought, 
it must be destroyed, root and branch, before the 
restoration of the Union. It would be a criminal 
folly to permit a vestige of it to linger and disturb the 
new Union. Lincoln therefore strove earnestly in the 
closing months of the war for the passage of the thir- 
teenth amendment, which he looked upon as the 
completion of his labors for freedom. 

In the evening following his second inauguration 
he held a reception. Frederick Douglass, who was 
born a slave, presented himself to be received by the 
President. No negro ever before had been seen on a 
social occasion at the White House, and the police 
started at once to put Douglass out. A protest being 

320 



LINCOLN THE EMANCIPATOR 

raised by some onlooker, however, he was permitted 
to take his place in the line of guests, where in due 
time he was cordially greeted by the President. For 
Lincoln, although he knew the prejudices of others, 
had a respect for the feelings as well as for the rights 
of the members of this enslaved race. 

"Mr. Lincoln," said Douglass, "is the only white 
man with whom I have ever talked, or in whose pres- 
ence I have ever been, who did not consciously or 
unconsciously betray to me that he recognized my 
color." He invited Douglass to tea in his cottage at 
the Soldiers' Home, and many negroes attended the 
President's New Year's reception in the closing 
days of the war, laughing and crying with joy as 
they stood in their new manhood before their eman- 
cipator. 



321 



CHAPTER XXX 

LINCOLN AND HIS CABINET 



A group of naturally discordant advisers moulded and harmonized 
by Lincoln's unsuspected mastery of men. — Seward or Chase 
expected to be the real power behind the chair of the unknown 
and untried President. — Seward's amazing proposal to 
Lincoln, April I, 1861, and the kindly firmness with which 
the latter rejected it. — Chase's pathetic failure to understand 
his chief. — Attempt of the Senate to reconstruct the cabinet, 
December 19, 1862, and Lincoln's successful method of meet- 
ing the crisis. — Lincoln and Stanton a strangely matched team. 
— "I have very little influence with this administration." — 
How Lincoln slowly and gently gained the lead over all. — 
Chase's resignation, June 28, 1864, and Lincoln's generous 
appointment of him to the Chief-justiceship, December 6, 
1864. — Estimates of Lincoln's leadership by Seward and 
Stanton. 

Lincoln hated to dictate. He shrank from assum- 
ing to control the members of his cabinet until 
forced by circumstances to take upon himself the 
responsibility. His natural preference was to work 
with, rather than to lead men. He could not bear 
to humble any fellow-being, however low his rank. 
He found, however, as emergencies arose, that some 
one must rule, and that as President he alone was 
responsible to the people. His courage never per- 
mitted him to shirk a duty, and thus little by little 

322 




Edward Bates 
Attorney 
General 



M"s rcOM] kv Hi mi; 

Postmaster 

i leneral 



From the collection of Frederick II. Meserve, Esq., New Y..rk City 

Lincoln and his Cabini i 



LINCOLN AND HIS CABINET 

his power was modestly put forth until his quiet 
mastery was complete. 

When the members of Lincoln's cabinet first met, 
probably no one among them suspected that their 
counsels would be ruled by the man who sat at the 
head of the table. None of them knew him, and 
most of them felt they were the superiors of the un- 
tried and untrained President. They had all been 
chosen by him for political and party reasons. Four 
had been his competitors for the nomination at Chi- 
cago. He had not one personal friend in the group. 

The construction of such a cabinet was a daring 
venture. There was no binding tie between the 
secretaries. Rivals or strangers to Lincoln, they 
were not united in loyalty to him. Drawn from hos- 
tile factions, there was no harmony of purpose among 
them. Only a President with the power to mould 
and master men could hold together a group of 
advisers naturally so discordant. 

Few, if any, imagined that Lincoln would dominate 
them. For twenty years there had been a succession 
of weak Presidents, reigning but not ruling. The 
Chief Executive had come to be no more than the 
figurehead of a strong faction. Lincoln's administra- 
tion, therefore, was expected to be his only in name. 

Two men in the cabinet, Seward and Chase, repre- 
senting opposing forces in the new Republican party, 

3 2 3 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



aspired to be the real power behind the President's 
chair. Their struggle for control began before Lin- 
coln reached Washington, and grew more intense as 
time went on. Seward, an old and adroit New York 
politician, had been the original choice of a large 
majority of Republicans for President, and he 
looked upon Lincoln as a mere accident of politics. 
Moreover, as Secretary of State, he held the ranking 
place in the cabinet. 

Under these circumstances he assumed at once to 
be the directing genius of the administration. He 
was a man of free and easy manners, and had been 
long in Washington. Lincoln liked him, and relied 
for a while upon his larger experience with public men 
and public affairs. 

In this period, Seward amused himself by play- 
ing the part of a prime minister. He undertook 
not only to conduct the State Department, but 
to deal with the seceded states of the South, and 
to give orders to the army and navy. By his 
advice there were no stated cabinet meetings for 
several weeks, because he preferred to be the sole 
adviser of the President, and he took it upon himself 
to call the few meetings which were held in the early 
stages of the administration. 

Intoxicated by power, he lost his head. He de- 
termined to have his supreme position formally 

3 2 4 



LINCOLN AND HIS CABINET 

recognized and established. It was then that he 
made in writing his wild proposal to the President, 
that the United States should bring on a war with 
some foreign nation in order to awaken the patriot- 
ism of the South, and that the President should let 
him conduct the government. 

Lincoln ignored this mortal insult as if it had come 
from a child, and put aside the folly of it all with the 
patience and firmness of a large nature — a display 
of strength which instantly and forever conquered his 
ambitious Secretary. 

When Seward had finished reading the brief and 
kindly reply, he was entirely changed. Ever after 
he was content simply to serve. Straightway taking 
his place in his own department, he kept it to the end, 
an able and loyal lieutenant of his chief, whose path 
he never crossed again. He was the first to challenge 
the new President and the first to accept his leader- 
ship. 

No hint of the encounter escaped the lips of either. 
Lincoln had maintained his own dignity, without 
humiliating Seward. The good understanding be- 
tween them in their official relations ripened into a 
hearty personal friendship, which nothing ever dis- 
turbed. 

Chase, the other ambitious member of the cabinet, 
built for himself the enduring fame of a great Secre- 

3 2 5 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



tary of the Treasury, but he remained throughout his 
service a stranger to the President. The Secretary 
was a man of culture, and was an eminent statesman 
when Lincoln was yet unknown outside of Illinois. 
He never could persuade himself to accept the latter's 
elevation above him. 

Worst of all, he was totally without a sense of 
humor, and that deficiency hopelessly and pathetic- 
ally separated the two men. "The truth is," Chase 
observed with all his solemn seriousness, "I have 
never been able to make a joke out of this war." He 
was a persistent and open critic of the President, at 
whose council table he sat. "He may have been a 
good flatboatman and rail-splitter," he admitted to 
one of his correspondents, in a flippant reference to 
the President, but he failed to appreciate Lincoln's 
statesmanship. 

His constant faultfinding with the President and 
his associates aided in finally bringing on a serious 
crisis. When the administration was well-nigh over- 
whelmed with disaster in the field and defeat at the 
polls, the Republican senators, still cherishing the 
delusion that Lincoln was not his own master, de- 
termined to rescue him from Seward's influence, 
which they thought was wrecking the administration, 
and place him under the wiser guidance of Chase. 
They did not dream that the entire cabinet could go 

326 



LINCOLN AND HIS CABINET 

and a new one come without affecting the President's 
policies. 

A caucus was held, and a delegation of leading 
senators was sent to force the retirement of the 
Secretary of State. Lincoln received them without 
showing any resentment, and invited them to return 
in the evening. When they came at the appointed 
time, they were surprised to find that he had as- 
sembled all the members of the cabinet except 
Seward, and the two groups were thus obliged to 
discuss the situation face to face. 

This unexpected meeting resulted in clearing the 
air and in silencing; several of the senators. Seward 
offered his resignation, and Chase felt that he had 
been exposed in a position where it was only proper 
for him to show the same self-sacrificing spirit. He 
came to see the President the next morning, with his 
written resignation in his hand. While he was still 
hesitating to present it, however, Lincoln approached 
him, and guessing what the irresolute Secretary held 
in his hand he reached for the paper. Chase could 
do nothing less than deliver it to him and take his 
departure. 

Lincoln was made happy thus to have the two 
rivals on an equal footing. He sat down at once and 
wrote to both of them, declining to accept their 
resignations, whereupon they resumed their duties. 

3 2 7 






ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



"Now," said Lincoln, with a smile of satisfaction, 
" I can ride ; I have got a pumpkin in each end of my 
bag." He had retained the two factions in his ser- 
vice in order that they should balance each other, 
and had reorganized his cabinet without losing 
either of his able secretaries. 

After that experience with the President, the sen- 
ators concluded that he knew enough to conduct his 
own affairs, and they let him alone. They could 
sympathize with Horace Greeley, who adopted the 
prudent policy of keeping away from the White 
House. "Lincoln is too sharp for me," the famous 
editor declared; "every time I go near him, he winds 
me around his finger." 

With equal tact and skill, the President made 
a much-needed change in the head of the War 
Department. Secretary Cameron, a powerful poli- 
tician, had not conducted this most important de- 
partment to the satisfaction of his chief and the 
country. Lincoln succeeded in the delicate task of 
securing his withdrawal from it without wounding 
his feelings, and appointed in his place Edwin M. 
Stanton, a Democrat, who had shown himself an out- 
spoken personal and political enemy of the President. 

Stanton, who was a lawyer in Washington, had 
not entered the White House since Lincoln's ap- 
pearance there, and had been free with his criticisms 

328 



LINCOLN AND HIS CABINET 

of the administration. All this counted for nothing 
against his fitness for the office. Lincoln's nature 
was a stranger to the spirit of revenge. He did not 
have to forgive the insult he received at Stanton's 
hands the first time they met in the reaper case in 
Cincinnati a few years before, or his bitter criticism 
of the administration; he could calmly ignore them. 

The new Secretary of War brought to his duties 
a patriotic devotion that was almost fanatical and 
an energy that thrilled the dispirited armies. He 
forgot himself, the President, and every one else in 
his rage for the success of the Union arms. "Now, 
we will have some fighting," was his grim watch- 
word. He trod intrigue and influence like serpents 
under his ruthless heel. He would have no secret 
influences in his department. Taking his stand 
each day at a certain hour to receive his callers, — 
senators, generals, and all alike, — he placed beside 
him a stenographer who took down a report of 
everything that was said. 

Men rushed to the White House in offended 
dignity to complain of the high-handed measures 
of the new Secretary. To smooth the ruffled feel- 
ings of one of them, Lincoln told a story. "We 
may," he said, "have to treat Stanton as they are 
sometimes obliged to treat a Methodist minister 
I know out West. He gets wrought up to so high 

3 2 9 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



a pitch of excitement in his prayers and exhorta- 
tions that they put bricks in his pockets to keep 
him down. But I guess," the President concluded 
with a twinkle, "we'll let him jump awhile first." 

A Governor who came to the White House in a rage 
over some act of Stanton's was sent away in a better 
frame of mind, but without receiving any concession. 
Lincoln was asked to tell how he appeased him, and 
he said he did it the same way that an Illinois farmer 
got rid of a big log which lay in the middle of his 
field : he " ploughed around " the wrathful Governor. 
" But," the President confessed, " it took me nearly 
three hours to do it, and I was in mortal fear all the 
time that he w r ould discover what I was up to." 

No doubt Lincoln secretly rejoiced in the very 
violence of Stanton's temper as a quality which he 
himself lacked, and was glad to employ it in the 
service of his administration. When a man who had 
wheedled the President into o-ivino: him a note of 
introduction to the Secretary hastened back to the 
White House to tell him that Stanton had angrilv 
torn up the President's card and thrown it in the 
waste basket, Lincoln looked upon it as a good joke. 
"Well, that's just like Stanton," he exclaimed with 
real enjoyment of the situation. 

A Congressman who went to the Secretary with 
an order from the President came back to report 

33° 



LINCOLN AND HIS CABINET 

that Stanton ignored the order and said the President 
was a fool. Lincoln only answered that if Stanton 
said he was a fool, he must be a fool, as "Stanton is 
nearly always right and generally says what he means." 

To another man who begged him to overrule 
Stanton's refusal of a pass through the military 
lines, the President remarked with a helpless air, 
"I can do nothing; for you must know that I have 
very little influence with this administration." 

Nevertheless, in his own quiet way, Lincoln took 
care to slip a few bricks into the pockets of his ram- 
pant Secretary of War as occasion required. If un- 
checked in his remorseless passion for the triumph 
of the Union, he might have shut the gates of mercy 
and set up an iron-handed despotism that would 
have wrecked the cause which he had so much at 
heart. Lincoln ruled him with a forbearance and 
firmness which gave the government the aid of 
his great powers, while restraining him from harming 
its interests. 

When the capital was in peril from Lee's first in- 
vasion, and Lincoln determined to recall McClellan 
to the command of the army, he knew that Stanton 
would never sanction the step, and he acted 
without consulting him. The Secretary when he 
heard of it came to the White House in an ugly 
mood. The President met him in the kindest 

33 l 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



spirit, but in terms marked with such strong decision 
that there could be no appeal, he told him he had 
given the order and he alone would stand responsible 
for it before the country. 

At another time when Lincoln gave a permit 
without knowing that it was contrary to the wishes 
of both Grant and Stanton, the latter positively 
refused to comply with it. The President regretted 
his act, but he had given his word and felt he must 
see it through, in order to avoid a serious difficulty 
with powerful persons who were concerned in the 
matter. He said therefore: — 

"Mr. Secretary, I reckon you'll have to execute 
the order." 

"Mr. President," Stanton replied with feeling, 
"I cannot do it; the order is an improper one." 

"Mr. Secretary," Lincoln persisted with a look 
of determination, "it will have to be done." 

That was enough. No man could have a quarrel 
with Lincoln, and Stanton obeyed without further 
protest. Then, always fair, the President wrote 
to Grant explaining in plain words that the permit 
was a blunder on his own part and that Stanton 
should not be blamed for it. 

"He might appear to go Seward's way one day," 
Grant said in reviewing Lincoln's leadership, "and 
Stanton's another; but all the time he was going 

33 2 



LINCOLN AND HIS CABINET 

his own course and they with him. It was that 
gentle firmness in carrying out his own will without 
argument, force, or friction that formed the basis." 

The bravery and constancy of the man gave him 
the lead without effort on his part. His patience 
was a large part of his strength. His temper was 
slow and under excellent control. He never spoke 
in haste, acted in haste, or moved in haste. No 
member of his cabinet ever heard a word of fault- 
finding from him or received even a frown. 

Yet if it suited him, he could speak with positive- 
ness. When Halleck as General-in-chief of the 
army dared to ask that one of the Secretaries 
be dropped, Lincoln bluntly replied, "I propose to 
be myself the judge as to when a member of the 
cabinet shall be dismissed." Again, to suppress 
a quarrel between the members themselves, he felt 
obliged to read the cabinet a rather stern lecture, 
in which he said he did not wish to hear more of 
such a thing "here or elsewhere, now or hereafter." 

While compelled by his position to be the head 
of his administration, and sometimes to overrule 
his subordinates, he seldom interfered in the affairs 
of any department other than the War Department, 
where as Commander-in-chief it was necessary for 
him to take a close and active interest. 

Incapable of jealousy, he left the members of his 
333 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



cabinet free to conduct their respective branches 
of the public service in their own way and to reap 
for themselves whatever fame their success brought 
them. He was ignorant of the details of their duties 
and did not try to acquire a knowledge of them, 
trusting entirely to their judgment and experience. 
He had no taste for desk work, and with his remark- 
able memory he was able to carry the Presidency 
of the United States in his hat. 

"Money," Lincoln cried to some bankers. "I 
don't know anything about money. I never had 
enough of my own to fret me, and I have no opinion 
about it anyway. Go see Chase." The Secretary 
of the Treasury was as innocent as he of finance 
in the beginning of the administration, but with a 
high order of intelligence he had built up a sys- 
tem which brought in the three billions required 
for the expenses of the army and enough more 
to carry on the rest of the public work. It stands 
in history as a great achievement and wholly 
to his credit. Lincoln had the sound common 
sense not to waste his time in meddling with the 
work which he appointed another to do and who 
gave all his thought and strength to the task. 

Unfortunately Chase's extraordinary abilities were 
impaired by a childish vanity and a peevish temper. 
He was a poor chooser of men, and whenever the 

334 



LINCOLN AND HIS CABINET 

President saw fit to revise or interfere with his ap- 
pointments, he took offence. Resignation was his 
favorite way of showing resentment, and Lincoln 
coaxed him out of several such fits of ill humor. 

"I went directly up to him with his resignation 
in my hand," he recalled, in describing one expe- 
rience of this kind when he had driven out to his 
Secretary's house, "and putting my arm around 
his neck, said to him, 'Chase, here is a paper with 
which I wish to have nothing to do. Take it back 
and be reasonable;' I had to plead with him a long 
time. 

In his restless ambition to be President and in 
his contempt for Lincoln's qualifications for the place, 
Chase finally permitted himself to be a candi- 
date against his chief. It was at a time when Lin- 
coln was pursued by opponents, and the outlook 
for his reelection was dark. Yet he patiently bore 
with this opposition in his own official household. 

Chase himself came to see the false position which 
he was occupying and offered to resign. Lincoln 
answered that he had ignored the entire matter as 
far as he could. He had refused to read the circulars 
issued in behalf of the Secretary's candidacy and 
had not encouraged any one to discuss the subject 
in his hearing. He concluded by declining to accept 
his resignation, 

335 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



"Whether you shall remain at the head of the 
Treasury Department is a question," the President 
added in fine temper, "which I shall not allow myself 
to consider from any standpoint other than my 
judgment of the public service, and in that view 
I do not perceive occasion for change." 

Long after the movement for Chase's nomination 
had perished in its absurdity and Lincoln himself 
was nominated again, the Secretary once more lost 
his patience with the President and resigned. A 
grave financial crisis was upon the country, and it 
was generally a time of gloom for the Union. Lin- 
coln, however, had the courage to face the inevitable, 
and with a promptness which took Chase by sur- 
prise he accepted the resignation on the ground 
that the differences between them had become so 
embarrassing that it was best they should part. 
"I had found a good deal of embarrassment from 
him," the retiring Secretary in his unfortunate lack 
of humor confided to his diary, "but what he had 
found from me I cannot imagine." 

Lincoln, on the other hand, ungrudgingly said, 
"Of all the great men I have known, Chase is equal 
to about one and a half of the best of them." 

The Chief-justiceship of the United States soon 
became vacant. With a magnanimity rarely equaled, 
Lincoln conferred on Chase this highest honor in a 



336 



LINCOLN AND HIS CABINET 

President's gift. There is genuine pathos in this 
entry which the ex-Secretary made in his diary at a 
time when Lincoln, ignoring their unhappy estrange- 
ment, had determined to crown his great services with 
a splendid prize, "I feel that I do not know him." 
Others whose good fortune it was to sit at the 
cabinet table of Lincoln were more happily gifted 
by nature to appreciate the homely yet lofty nature 
which swayed their counsels by its moral force. 
Seward pronounced it a character "made and 
moulded by Divine Power to save a nation," and 
Stanton beheld in his chief "the most perfect ruler 
of men the world has ever seen." 



337 



CHAPTER XXXI 

LINCOLN AND HIS GENERALS 



All the great soldiers destined to reap the harvest of glory, in 
obscurity when the war began. — Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, 
and Thomas unknown men in 1861. — The advantage of the 
Confederacy in its military leaders. — Lincoln's trials with 
McClellan and the earlier commanders. — His remarkable letter 
to Hooker, January 26, 1863. — How he applied his gift of 
common sense to the art of war. — Some of his homely words of 
wisdom regarding strategy. — No meddlesome spirit. — Stand- 
ing by Grant when the general was a stranger and friendless. 
— "I can't spare this man; he fights." — His faith in him. 
"You were right and I was wrong." — Grant, General-in- 
chief in the spring of 1864. — Grant and Sherman's estimates 
of Lincoln. — His model relations with his generals. — His 
great achievement in maintaining the civil power supreme, 
and himself, the elected chief of the people, superior to military 
heroes. 

The great captains destined to lead the armies 
of the Union to victory were unknown men when 
the war began. 

Grant had resigned his captaincy in the regular 
army and was a clerk in his father's leather store 
at Galena, Illinois, at a salary of fifty dollars a month. 
His duties were to keep books and buy hides from 
the farmers' wagons. He was thirty-nine and his life 
a failure, although he had shown in the Mexican cam- 
paign that he was a good hand at the trade of war. 

33* 




From the collection ..1 Frederick H. Meserve, Esq,., N 

Lincoln and his Commanders 

An old group reproduced 



LINCOLN AND HIS GENERALS 

Sherman, too, had resigned from the regular 
army, in which he had risen to the rank of captain 
in the commissary department. He had missed 
active service in the Mexican War, having been on 
a detail in California at that time. After leaving 
the army he tried banking and the practice of the 
law, each of which occupations he abandoned, and 
he was at the head of a military school in Louisiana 
when that state prepared to secede. At the out- 
break of the war he was forty-one and the president 
of a street railway in St. Louis. 

Sheridan was only thirty and a captain in the 
quartermaster's department. Thomas also was in 
the army and a major. Meade, who was forty-six, 
had been in the service most of the time since leav- 
ing West Point, twenty-five years before. Hancock 
was thirty-five and a captain. McPherson was 
a lieutenant. Whether in the army or out, the 
generals who reaped the harvest of glory were veiled 
in obscurity when the war came. Fortune seemed 
determined to keep them in concealment until, like 
the stars of the theater, the stage of action was made 
ready for their entrance upon it. 

Grant vainly applied to the War Department and 
to the governors of three states for a commission; 
his applications were pigeon-holed. Sherman, who 
had a brother in the Senate, was not entirely neg- 

339 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



lected. He received the offer of the chief clerkship 
of the War Department, but feeling that he would 
be more useful with the sword than with the pen, 
he refused the place and bided his time in the street- 
car office. 

Sheridan was sent out to buy horses, the one task 
of all for which he probably was the least fitted. 
Thomas was under suspicion because he was a 
Virginian, and his superiors could not understand 
why he had not gone over to the South. They did 
not deem it safe to trust him with an independent 
command. Thus it chanced that the men who were 
to bear the flag of the Union to its final triumph 
were all hidden from view in the early days of the 
war. 

Fate dealt more kindly with the Confederacy. 
Its President was himself a soldier, trained at West 
Point and in the war with Mexico, and he had 
besides been Secretary of War of the United States. 
Whether due to Jefferson Davis's acquaintance 
with military men and military affairs, or to some 
other cause, the Confederate government discovered 
and developed at the outset some of its greatest 
commanders — -men like Lee, Johnston, Longstreet, 
and Jackson. 

Lincoln, on the other hand, knew nothing of war 
or warriors. He was wholly dependent on the 

340 



LINCOLN AND HIS GENERALS 

professional advice of the men whom he found at 
the head of the regular army. Scott, the command- 
ing general, was seventy-five and in his dotage, 
while the next officer in rank, the commander of 
the department of the East, General Wool, was 
seventy-three. Another aged major-general, Twiggs, 
in command of the department of Texas, abandoned 
his entire charge to the Confederacy, and the Ad- 
jutant-general himself went over to the enemy. 

The duty of constructing an army thus was thrust 
upon Lincoln, feebly aided by Scott. The Secretary 
of War, Cameron, was a politician and ignorant of 
military matters. 

Governors and senators pressed for the appoint- 
ment of political favorites. While Lincoln yielded 
to this pressure, he accepted in most instances the 
counsels of General Scott. At the suggestion of 
the old General, the command of the army in the 
field was offered to Robert E. Lee; but the latter 
listened to the call of his state rather than to that 
of his country. McClellan was Scott's next choice, 
and he also selected Haileck to take charge of the 
operations in the West. To both of these men the 
President clung, long after they had lost the favor 
of the cabinet and the public. 

Lincoln and McClellan first met in Illinois, where 
the latter was a railway official. Being a Democrat, 

341 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



he supported Douglas in his campaign for the Senate 
and carried him over the state in his private car. 
While Lincoln ignored their past political unfriend- 
liness, McClellan seemed to regard him rather 
as the poor country lawyer whom he had known 
in the West than as the Commander-in-chief who 
had lifted him to his high eminence in the army. 

His staff were cautioned against imparting military 
secrets to the supposedly guileless and garrulous 
President, who, not standing on the order of prece- 
dence, was in the habit of seeking out his young 
general, whom he fondly addressed as "George," 
at his home in the city instead of troubling him to 
come to the White House. 

One evening when he called, McClellan refused 
even to see him. The General entered his house 
and went upstairs, sending down word to Lincoln, 
who modestly sat waiting for him in his anteroom, 
that he was going to bed and must be excused. 
After that incident they met as a rule only at the 
White House and on official business. 

Even there the soldier did not always show the 
respect due to his chief. He refused, in the presence 
of the cabinet, the President's request that he sub- 
mit his plans, at a time when the public patience 
was worn out by the army's delays. On another 
occasion he failed entirely to respond to a sum- 

342 



LINCOLN AND HIS GENERALS 

mons to meet the President; but Lincoln remarked 
to the indignant men who were waiting with him, 
"Never mind; I would hold McClellan's horse if 
he would only bring us success." 

The General was a young man. His rise had 
been too rapid for his own good, and he mistook Lin- 
coln's patient deference for weakness. His letters to 
his wife overflowed with boyish conceit. " By some 
strange operation of magic I seem to have become 
the power of the land," he confided to her. Growing 
Napoleonic in spirit as well as in name, at another 
time he informed her, "I would cheerfully take the 
dictatorship and agree to lay down my life when the 
country is saved." 

McClellan's constant grievance was a lack of 
support, both in men and supplies, while his chronic 
weakness was his unwillingness to make the best of 
what he had, and to remember that the President 
and others in authority, as well as himself, had their 
duties and their troubles. 

When Lincoln at last replaced him, after a trial 
of more than a year, he selected as his successor 
the man next in rank, Burnside, in spite of the latter's 
own protest that he was "not competent to command 
such a large army." It was hoped that the new 
General's modesty would avail more than his prede- 
cessor's self-assurance; but in a month he went 

343 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



down in the disastrous battle of Fredericksburg, and 
Hooker, the next man in line, took his place. 

Lincoln wrote the new commander an extraor- 
dinary letter, such a letter as has seldom been ad- 
dressed to a man at the head of a great army by 
any civil official. In this unusual communication 
he said to Hooker: — 

"I believe you to be a brave and skilful soldier, 
which of course I like. I also believe you do not 
mix politics with your profession, in which you are 
right. You have confidence in yourself, which is 
a valuable, if not an indispensable, quality. You 
are ambitious, which within reasonable bounds 
does good rather than harm; but I think that during 
General Burnside's command of the army you have 
taken counsel of your ambition, and thwarted him 
as much as you could, in which you did a great 
wrong to the country and to a most meritorious and 
honorable brother officer. I have heard in such 
a way as to believe it, of your recently saying that 
both the army and the government needed a dic- 
tator. 

"Of course it is not for this, but in spite of it, 
that I have given you the command. Only those gen- 
erals who gain successes can set up dictators. What 
I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk 
the dictatorship." 

344 



LINCOLN AND HIS GENERALS 

These plain words of reproof and warning combined, 
as only Lincoln could, firmness with good humor. 
They sobered rather than angered Hooker. " He 
talks to me like a father," he said. "I will not 
answer this letter until I have won him a great 
victory." 

At this time, Lincoln was most sorely tried. The 
war had been going on two years, and he was not 
sure he had yet found a general. He was in a 
mood to despair of shoulder straps and the military 
profession. Man after man had risen in the magnifi- 
cence of a splendid new uniform and the mystery 
of the art of war. Lincoln had watched them come 
on at first with a layman's simple confidence, but 
afterward with increasing distrust, flourishing their 
swords and issuing high-sounding proclamations to 
their troops. 

Napoleon seemed to be the favorite model among 
them. Too often, alas, their ambitions outran their 
performances. McClellan was going to "crush 
the rebels in one campaign." Again he confidently 
promised, "In ten days I shall be in Richmond." 
Now, Hooker was filled with the same confidence, 
and talked so much and jauntily of taking Richmond, 
that Lincoln's heart sank at the familiar sound of it. 

Although Halleck, the General-in-chief, was at 
his elbow to serve as military adviser, the President 

345 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



in his responsibility to the country and to history 
had been driven slowly to undertake the direction of 
the armies. He sat up nights with military books, 
and his eye was continually on the war maps. He 
found, probably greatly to his surprise, that his gift 
of plain common sense had its usefulness even in 
the strategy of warfare. Little by little he gave 
his generals the benefit of it, but always with a good 
deal of diffidence. 

"With these continuous rains," he once reminded 
McClellan, "I am very anxious about the Chicka- 
hominy — so close in your rear and crossing your 
line of communication. Please look to it." " By 
proper scout lookouts," he telegraphed General 
Fremont, "and beacons of smoke by day and fires 
by night you can always have timely notice of the 
enemy's approach. I know not as to you, but by 
some this has been too much neglected." 

"I state my general idea of this war to be," he 
wrote to General Buell, "that we have the greater 
numbers, and the enemy has the greater facility 
of concentrating forces upon points of collision; 
that we must fail unless we find some way of making 
our advantage an overmatch for his." He added, 
however, that he did not ofFer his views as orders 
and would blame the General if he should adopt 
them contrary to his own judgment. 

346 



LINCOLN AND HIS GENERALS 

"You would be better off anywhere," he wrote 
General Banks, "for not having a thousand wagons 
doing nothing but hauling the forage to feed the 
animals that draw them." "He who does some- 
thing at the head of one regiment," he gently ad- 
monished General Hunter, "will eclipse him who 
does nothing at the head of a hundred." 

"I would not take any risk," he cautioned Hooker, 
when urging him to begin the pursuit of Lee, which 
reached its glorious climax in the great victory at 
Gettysburg, "of being entangled upon the river, 
like an ox jumped half over a fence, and liable to 
be torn by dogs front and rear, without a fair chance 
to gore one way and kick the other." "If he stays 
where he is," he telegraphed again to Hooker re- 
garding Lee, "fret him, and fret him." "If the 
head of Lee's army is at Martinsburg and the tail 
of it on the plank road between Fredericksburg 
and Chancellorsville," so ran one of his messages 
to the same General early in the Gettysburg cam- 
paign, "the animal must be very slim somewhere. 
Could you not break him?" 

In trying to compose the untimely quarrel between 
Halleck and Hooker, he wrote to the latter, "If 
you and he would use the same frankness to one 
another and to me that I use to both of you, there 
would be no difficulty." All he asked, he said, 

347 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



was that the two generals should harmonize their 
judgments and go ahead, "with my poor mite added, 
if indeed he and you shall think it entitled to any 
consideration at all." 

In such instances as these, it is seen how Lincoln 
sought to leaven the counsels and campaigns of 
his commanders with simple common sense. The 
same common sense, however, saved him from 
meddling with men who went about their business 
and let him alone. 

There rose a general with whom he never inter- 
fered, to whom he never offered a word of advice. 
This was Grant, who got into the war by leading to 
the front a mutinous Illinois regiment, from which 
the fair-weather political colonels had fled in terror. 

Without influence and opposed by jealous su- 
periors, this soldier mounted the ladder of military 
rank by strictly and silently minding his own business. 
He never asked for promotion. He was heard from 
in Washington only when he had some action to 
report. He did not stop to clamor for more men 
or to complain of a lack of supplies. He took what 
was given him and went ahead. 

He must have puzzled and amazed Lincoln, this 
strange man from his own state, whom he never 
had heard of until he was winning victories for 
him. It is doubtful if, when Grant was charged 

348 



LINCOLN AND HIS GENERALS 

with intemperance, he said he would like to send 
the same brand of liquor to other generals, but the 
familiar story well expresses the President's con- 
fidence. 

While his victory at Fort Donelson was yet fresh, 
Grant was placed under arrest by Halleck for a 
petty military offence, but Lincoln caused him to 
be released and restored to his command. The 
early reports from the battle of Shiloh gave the im- 
pression that the army had been imperiled through 
Grant's dissipation, and a storm of denunciation 
assailed him. Lincoln sustained him single-handed, 
simply saying, "I can't spare this man; he fights." 

In the disappointments of the long Vicksburg 
campaign, the old prejudices against the General 
were revived, and once more Lincoln stood by him 
when he was friendless. All the while the two 
men remained strangers, and the General could 
not even know who it was that was shielding 
him. 

When the victory came, the President took pains 
to let the world know that all the credit belonged to 
Grant. "I do not remember that you and I ever met 
personally," he wrote to him; and after praising his 
campaign, which led to the capture of Vicksburg, 
he admitted that he had feared it was a mistake. 
"I now wish," Lincoln generously concluded, "to 

349 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



make the personal acknowledgment that you were 
right and I was wrong." 

It was in the course of this movement that Sher- 
man developed as Grant's great lieutenant, protesting 
to those who would give him a share in the congratu- 
lations over the Union success at Vicksburg, "Grant 
is entitled to every bit of credit for this campaign; 
I opposed it." 

In the battles about Chattanooga in the fall, 
Sheridan came in contact with Grant and Sherman, 
and thus at last the fortunes of war brought to- 
gether the three generals whose trusting and af- 
fectionate military companionship lasted to the end, 
sealed in devotion and unstained by jealousy. 

The Union now had a thoroughly organized 
army led by great commanders. Congress revived 
the grade of Lieutenant-general, and Lincoln sum- 
moned the victor of Donelson, Vicksburg, and Chat- 
tanooga to the capital to receive the high rank which 
none but Washington, among American soldiers, had 
worn, Scott having held it only by brevet. 

Notwithstanding Grant's renown filled the land, 
he was unknown at the seat of government. His 
post of duty had been at the front, and he had kept it. 
When, leading a young son by the hand, he walked 
up to the desk of a Washington hotel with a cigar 
in his mouth, a well-worn army hat on his head, 

35° 



LINCOLN AND HIS GENERALS 

and a linen duster on his back, the clerk told him 
he had no room except at the top of the house. 
The little blue-eyed, rusty man, with rough light 
brown whiskers, seemed not to care where he was 
sent as he went on writing the name, which startled 
the clerk when he turned the register around and 
read "U. S. Grant and Son, Galena, 111." 

The truth is, the newly arrived guest would have 
preferred the obscurity of an attic chamber to the 
honors which were thrust upon him in the parlor 
suite, to which he was promptly assigned. He 
never showed the dread of the guns of Vicksburg, 
which he betrayed whenever he was obliged to face 
the noisy enthusiasts who crowded the lobbies of 
the hotel, waiting to catch a glimpse of him, while, 
as he tried to eat his dinner under the eyes of the 
cheering people in the big dining room, he probably 
wished he was living off the country again down in 
Mississippi. 

When he was taken to the White House in the 
evening, he was embarrassed to find a reception 
in progress. Men and women drew back in their 
surprise as they saw the illustrious soldier led to 
Lincoln. The President clasped his hand in hearty 
gratitude and held it, while his little eyes looked 
down upon his general in frank curiosity. It was a 
picture ready for the pages of history. 

3Si 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



As soon as the brief scene was ended, the visitor 
was caught in an eddying whirl of eager admirers 
and swept on to the East Room, where at the sug- 
gestion of some one he climbed up on the safe heights 
of a sofa and there timidly submitted himself to 
the gaze of the people. It was his first appearance 
as a lion. When he had finally broken the siege 
and escaped to the outer air, he was perspiring 
from the ordeal through which he had passed, and 
hoping that the "show business" was ended for 
good. 

The next day, in the presence of the Cabinet, 
he received his commission as Lieutenant-general 
and his designation as General-in-chief of all the 
armies, East and West. He kept out of sight as 
completely as he could the rest of the day, and on 
the day following went to the headquarters of the 
Army of the Potomac, while the day after that 
found him on his way back to Tennessee, having 
pleased Lincoln not a little by declining a White 
House dinner. 

War had become a business, and Grant was all 
business. No longer did the commander prance 
along cheering lines at grand reviews, dwell in state 
in Washington, or issue ringing proclamations to 
his army. The new General-in-chief was one who 
had always lived with his men, who shared their 

352 



LINCOLN AND HIS GENERALS 

hardships and perils, and who in uniform and 
bearing could easily be mistaken for a private 
soldier. 

Grant pressed matters with such despatch, that 
in the first week of May, while Sherman's army 
was starting southward from Chattanooga on the 
great Georgia campaign, he himself led the Army 
of the Potomac into the wilderness on its slow and 
bloody journey to Richmond. This latter prize was 
within an easy day's walk, but now every inch of 
the way must be paved with Union dead. With 
Lee in front of him, Grant for the first time faced a 
foeman worthy of his steel. 

Lincoln no longer troubled himself with the direc- 
tion of the armies. He trusted all to Grant and his 
brothers in arms. "The particulars of your plan I 
neither know nor seek to know," he told Grant, who 
replied, "Should mv success be less than I desire and 
expect, the least I can say is that the fault is not with 
you." The General-in-chief gave secret orders to 
Sherman, which involved the famous march to the 
sea, and requested that Sheridan be placed in com- 
mand of a division. 

When the latter came to Washington, Lincoln 

frankly admitted that he himself, as well as Stanton, 

was opposed to his appointment on account of his 

comparative youth, but had given it to him solely 

2A 353 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



because Grant desired it. After the new appointee 
had gloriously justified Grant's confidence by his 
victories in the Shenandoah Valley, the President 
playfully remarked to "Little Phil," that although his 
ideal cavalry leader was at least six feet four in height, 
he had come to the conclusion that five feet four 
would do in a pinch. 

The only grievance Lincoln ever expressed against 
Grant took the form of a tribute of praise. " General 
Grant," he said, "is a copious worker and fighter, but 
a very meager writer or telegrapher." 

In the conduct of his cabinet, Lincoln showed 
himself a leader of leaders. In his relations with his 
generals, he proved himself a commander of com- 
manders. "He was incontestably the greatest man 
I ever knew," is Grant's estimate of him, while Sher- 
man said, "Of all the men I ever met, he seemed to 
possess more of the elements of greatness combined 
with goodness than any other." 

Lincoln did not go to the head of the group of 
statesmen whom he called into his cabinet, or the 
galaxy of generals whom he called to the colors of 
the nation, because he was more brilliant or more 
ambitious than the others. He did not conquer 
men by sheer strength, or trick them by smartness. 
Leadership came to him because he had a purpose 
that never wavered, a heart that never quailed, a 

354 



LINCOLN AND HIS GENERALS 

faith that never drooped, a courage that never shrank 
from responsibility. 

Besides the possession of these qualities, he was a 
gentleman among gentlemen, with a knightly sense 
of honor and a fine regard for the feelings of others. 
He dropped men from the cabinet and from com- 
mand, and moved them around freely, but without 
quarreling with them or incurring their enmity. 

His letters and messages to his generals are models 
of simple frankness, kindly courtesy, and good taste. 
As he confessed to Grant in congratulating him on 
the capture of Vicksburg, "You were right and I was 
wrong," so he took pains to admit in telegraphing to 
Sherman the thanks of the nation for his capture of 
Savannah, "The honor is all yours, for I believe none 
of us went further than to acquiesce," and finally, 
after the surrender at Appomattox, he declared to 
the rejoicing nation, "No part of the honor for plan 
or execution is mine." 

It is not easy to get up a rivalry with a man who is 
without envy; he is exalted above comparison and 
competition. Lincoln's was not a jealous nature. 
If he had shown a fear of a general's fame, he would 
thereby have lifted him at once to his own level. 

His opponents were always looking for a chance 
to displace him in the confidence of the people with 
some military hero. At first McClellan, then Rose- 

355 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



crans, and finally Grant was the favorite among them. 
Lincoln was fearful at one time that the conqueror of 
Vicksburg, in his innocence of politics, might lose his 
head and be tempted to be a candidate against him 
in 1864. When he was assured by Grant's friends 
that the "presidential grub" was not "gnawing at 
him," he expressed his sense of relief. Afterward, 
when a movement to make Grant President was 
openly started, his only comment was, "If he takes 
Richmond, let him have it." 

It is sometimes claimed for Lincoln that he became 
a better general than any in the field. That may not 
be true. At any rate, it was not a necessary qualifica- 
tion for his place. It was far more important that, as 
the Chief Magistrate of the republic and Commander- 
in-chief of the army by the voice of the people, he 
should have the ability to maintain his supremacy 
over his military subordinates. This he did at all 
times, and it stands as one of the most useful and 
wonderful of his achievements. 

There never was an hour when his hand did not 
rule the giant hosts in arms, when his pen was not 
mightier than the sword; never an hour of weakness, 
tempting a "man on horseback" to spurn his au- 
thority and seriously dream of setting up a military 
despotism. For this signal vindication of democratic 
institutions, the American people themselves are un- 

356 



LINCOLN AND HIS GENERALS 

doubtedly entitled to the larger share of credit, while 
no small share is due to the democratic characters of 
the military chieftains. With a weak or wilful man 
in Lincoln's place, however, it would have been 
impossible. He would surely have been overridden 
by events and men too powerful for him to direct 
and control. 

This was at once the test and the triumph of a gov- 
ernment by the people. All things considered, prob- 
ably it is without a parallel in history. In a long and 
mighty civil war in a democracy, with a million men 
under arms, the civil power remained always supreme, 
and the lawfully elected chief, a plain citizen, who 
never had set a squadron in the field, stood forth at 
the end, easily the foremost figure, without even 
a rival among the victorious generals and martial 
heroes who surrounded him. 



357 



CHAPTER XXXII 

LINCOLN IN VICTORY 



His noblest qualities called out in the hour of success as his hand 
turned to the new task of binding up the wounds of the Union. 

— Striving to win the South by magnanimity. — Applying 
Christian principles and the golden rule to statecraft. — Dis- 
appointed in his efforts for peace at Hampton Roads conference, 
February 3, 1865. — How he disposed of Charles I as an example. 

— His plan to offer to pay the South for its slaves defeated in 
the cabinet, February 5, 1865. — His rejoicing over the passage 
of the thirteenth amendment. — His second inauguration, 
March 4, 1865, and his second inaugural address. — His visit 
to Grant's army at City Point, Virginia, March 22 to April 9, 
to supervise terms of peace. — Lincoln and Grant, Sherman 
and Sheridan in conference. — The fall of Richmond, April 3. 

— Lincoln in Richmond, April 4 and 5. — Modest bearing of 
the conqueror in the capital of the enemy. — The black freed- 
men in ecstasy. — Lincoln in Jefferson Davis's chair. — "Judge 
not, that ye be not judged." — Returning to Washington, 
April 9. — Prophetic words from Shakespeare. 

Victory called out Lincoln's noblest qualities. 
He accepted it as humbly as he had borne defeat. 

When assured at the close of the military opera- 
tions, in the fall of 1864, that the country was saved, 
and that in a brief campaign in the spring the Con- 
federacy would surely be overthrown, he did not 
pause to exult. His hand turned at once to its new 
task. He must bind up the wounds of the Union 

358 



LINCOLN IN VICTORY 



and restore it. He would not fasten it together with 
bayonets and erect a rebellious Ireland or a deso- 
lated Poland within its borders. The South, con- 
quered by force, must be won by magnanimity. 

For him, this was a grateful duty. No bitterness 
rankled in his great, patient heart. Even when the 
blows of the foe rained heavy upon him, the Con- 
federates still were to him countrymen and fellow- 
Americans. His habit of fairness forbade him to 
hold any individuals, however high their stations, 
personally responsible for a great civil war. 

It better suited his sense of humor to refer to his 
adversaries as "the other side" or as "these south- 
ern gentlemen" than to rail at them as "rebels." 
"Jeffy D." and "Bobby Lee" were his favorite 
names for the two principal chieftains of the Con- 
federacy. When Stonewall Jackson was killed and 
a Washington newspaper printed an editorial tribute 
to that gallant upholder of the Stars and Bars, Lin- 
coln wrote a letter to the editor, commending his 
article. 

No sooner was he assured that the arms of the 
South must yield to the Union than he gave his 
anxious thought to winning the hearts of the south- 
ern people. Many, if not most, of the leaders of the 
Republican party were unable so readily to calm the 
passions which the long and desperate struggle had 

359 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



aroused in them. The radicals were loud in their 
call for the hanging of the foremost Confederates, for 
the confiscation of property, and for ruling the south- 
ern states as conquered provinces. Not a few who 
had clamored for a cowardly peace in the midst of 
war now lustily cried out for harsh measures as 
peace drew near. Lincoln's next battle must be 
with Congress and a large section of his own party. 

He disliked the form of the oath which Secretary 
Stanton prescribed for those in the South who wished 
to swear allegiance and which required them to de- 
clare they had not given "aid and comfort to the 
enemy." This, he complained, " rejects the Christian 
principle of forgiveness on terms of repentance. I 
think it is enough if the man does no wrong here- 
after." 

His whole course was guided by his feeling that the 
government should be animated by "no motive for 
revenge, no purpose to punish for punishment's sake," 
and he laid down as the golden rule of statesmanship 
that "we should avoid planting too many thorns 
in the bosom of society." He stated only a guiding 
principle of his own life when he said, "If any man 
ceases to attack me, I never remember the past 
against him." 

He refused to lend himself to any vengeful spirit 
toward those in the North who had opposed his elec- 

360 



LINCOLN IN VICTORY 



tion. "I am in favor," he said, "of short statutes 
of limitations in politics." In his annual message to 
Congress he claimed the people who voted against 
him, as well as those who voted for him in the recent 
election, as friends of the Union. No candidate, he 
proudly pointed out, sought support on the avowal 
that he was for giving up the Union. Men had dif- 
fered only as to the method of saving it. 

At the approach of spring, in 1865, the season for 
opening a new movement against the army of Lee, 
Lincoln was most anxious to gain peace without 
further bloodshed. He cared nothing for the mili- 
tary triumph which was certain to come. He 
would rather coax than drive the South into sub- 
mission. In this generous spirit he went to Hamp- 
ton Roads to meet Alexander H. Stephens, the Con- 
federate Vice-president, and other representatives of 
the Richmond government. 

If he had cared to stand on his dignity as President, 
he would not have gone to meet those subordinates 
of Jefferson Davis. If he had been moved by any 
pride of victory, he would have spurned the repre- 
sentatives of a foe already staggering to defeat. He 
thought, however, not of himself, but of the lives oi 
the men in blue and the men in gray which would 
be sacrificed on the renewal of the struggle. In an 
effort to save them, he left the capital and journeyed 

361 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



to the meeting place aboard a boat in Hampton 
Roads. 

On this mission he was deeply disappointed, for 
he found that the men he met had been instructed to 
insist on the recognition of the Confederate govern- 
ment. The President could not, of course, admit 
that there was any other established nation within 
the United States. 

One of the Confederates, in urging him to recog- 
nize them in their official capacity, pointed out as a 
precedent that King Charles I of Great Britain had 
deigned to treat with the representatives of the Par- 
liamentary army when it was in the field against him. 
Lincoln met this argument with a characteristic 
reply, which completely silenced it. "I do not pro- 
fess," he said, "to be posted in English history. On 
such matters I will turn you over to Seward. All I 
distinctly recollect about Charles I is that he lost 
his head." That was quite sufficient to dispose of 
this historic example as a safe one to follow. 

The conference having failed, Lincoln returned to 
Washington and tried another measure of stopping 
the war. This was in the form of a message to Con- 
gress, recommending that the government offer four 
hundred million dollars as compensation for the loss 
of the slaves, provided the Confederates should lay 
down their arms before April I. Again he was dis- 

362 



LINCOLN IN VICTORY 



appointed. When he submitted his plan to the cabi- 
net, its members were unanimously against it. "I 
see that you are all opposed to me," he said with a 
heavy sigh as he put the draft of his message in a 
drawer, "and I will not send it." 

One other object engaged his serious attention in 
that period. He was anxious that in the restored 
Union there should be no trace of the institution of 
slavery, the source of so much discord in the old 
Union. Slaves had been transformed into freedmen 
at the advance of the armies of the North, bearing 
his Emancipation Proclamation, and the system of 
bondage was in shreds throughout the South. He 
earnestly wished, however, to see its abolition in the 
border states as well as in the Confederate states 
decreed in the Constitution. 

Senator Sumner proposed a constitutional amend- 
ment, declaring that "everywhere within the limits of 
the United States and of each state or territory 
thereof, all persons are equal before the law, so that 
no person can hold another as a slave." 

Lincoln, however, preferred this form, "Neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punish- 
ment of crime whereof the party shall have been duly 
convicted, shall exist within the United States, or 
any place subject to their jurisdiction." The first 
part of that sentence was copied word for word from 

3 6 3 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



the Ordinance of 1787, which in his boyhood Lin- 
coln had read in a borrowed copy of the statutes of 
Indiana. He liked it then, and he desired now 
to see it embedded in the fundamental law of the 
land. 

No battle won brought him the joy which he felt 
when Congress adopted the resolution proposing this 
amendment. The Legislature of Illinois was in 
session at Springfield and before night it had given 
its approval. The news was sent to Lincoln by 
telegraph, and he was proud to see his own state 
take the lead in ratifying this thirteenth amendment 
of the Constitution. 

As he drove to the Capitol to be inaugurated a 
second time, a battalion of negro soldiers had an 
honorable part in the procession. While proudly 
escorting the emancipator of their race, they kept 
martial step on a pavement which, at his first inaugu- 
ration only four years before, had been pressed by 
the feet of slaves. 

When Lincoln again took his place on the steps 
of the Capitol to renew his pledge to preserve the 
Union, the group which surrounded him on the 
former occasion was cone. Buchanan was in re- 
tirement and Breckinridge was battling against the 
Stars and Stripes. Taney had sunk into his grave 
beneath the weight of years. Douglas was dead in 

3 6 4 



LINCOLN IN VICTORY 



his prime. Baker had fallen on one of the first fields 
of the conflict. 

Lincoln himself was another man. No longer the 
untried stranger, he stood there, the trusted and 
faithful leader crowned with a people's love. The 
awful story of the great war was written in his kindly 
face, where the heroic struggles and sacrifices of the 
imperiled nation could be traced in the new lines of 
strength about his mouth and in the added furrows 
of sorrow and care about his eyes. Whichever way 
he glanced over the audience hushed in expectancy, 
he saw sick and mutilated veterans from the 
hospitals, at once the witnesses and wrecks of the 
strife. 

There was less fear of an attempt at assassination 
now than at the former inauguration, and no ex- 
traordinary precautions were taken. When a well- 
known but eccentric actor, John Wilkes Booth, 
tried to press his way toward the presidential stand, 
the police pushed him back, and nothing more was 
thought of it, as an incident of this kind is not 
unusual on such an occasion. 

A rain had been falling and the day was gloomy. 
As Lincoln was about to take the oath, however, 
the sun burst through the clouds, an omen which he 
said made his "heart jump." The people listened 
to his inaugural address, awed by its solemn and 

3 6 5 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



stately beauty, gazing upon him as if he were a 
prophet speaking by inspiration: — 

"Fellow-countrymen: At this second appear- 
ing to take the oath of the presidential office, there 
is less occasion for an extended address than there 
was at the first. Then, a statement, somewhat 
in detail, of a course to be pursued, seemed fitting 
and proper. Now, at the expiration of four years, 
during which public declarations have been con- 
stantly called forth on every point and phase of the 
great contest which still absorbs the attention and 
engrosses the energies of the nation, little that is 
new could be presented. The progress of our 
arms, upon which all else chiefly depends, is as 
well known to the public as to myself; and it is, 
I trust, reasonably satisfactory and encouraging 
to all. With high hope for the future, no prediction 
in regard to it is ventured. 

"On the occasion corresponding to this four 
years ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed 
to an impending civil war. All dreaded it; all 
sought to avert it. While the inaugural address 
was being delivered from this place, devoted alto- 
gether to saving the Union without war, insurgent 
agents were in the city seeking to destroy it without 
war — seeking to dissolve the Union and divide 
effects by negotiation. Both parties deprecated 

366 



LINCOLN IN VICTORY 



war; but one of them would make war rather than 
let the nation survive; and the other would accept 
war rather than let it perish. And the war came. 

"One-eighth of the whole population were colored 
slaves, not distributed generally over the Union, 
but localized in the southern part of it. These 
slaves constituted a peculiar and powerful interest. 
All knew that this interest was, somehow, the cause 
of the war. To strengthen, perpetuate, and extend 
this interest was the object for which the insurgents 
would rend the Union, even by war; while the 
government claimed no right to do more than to 
restrict the territorial enlargement of it. 

"Neither party expected for the war the magnitude 
or the duration which it has already attained. 
Neither anticipated that the cause of the conflict 
might cease with, or even before, the conflict itself 
should cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, 
and a result less fundamental and astounding. 

"Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same 
God; and each invokes His aid against the other. 
It may seem strange that any men should dare to 
ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread 
from the sweat of other men's faces; but let us 
judge not, that we be not judged. The prayers 
of both could not be answered; that of neither 
has been answered fully. The Almighty has His 

367 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



own purposes. 'Woe unto the world because of 
offences! for it must needs be that offences come; 
but woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.' 

"If we shall suppose American slavery is one 
of those offences which, in the providence of God, 
must needs come, but which, having continued 
through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, 
and that He gives to both North and South this 
terrible war, as the woe due to those by whom the 
offence came, shall we discern therein any departure 
from those divine attributes which the believers 
in a living God always ascribe to Him ? 

"Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that 
this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. 
Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth 
piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years 
of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every 
drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by 
another drawn with the sword, as was said three 
thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The 
judgments of the Lord are true and righteous al- 
together.' 

"With malice toward none, with charity for all, 
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the 
right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; 
to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who 
shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and 

368 



LINCOLN IN VICTORY 



his orphan; to do all which may achieve and cherish 
a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with 
all nations." 

The Second Inaugural at once took its place 
beside the Gettysburg Address, and thus he, who 
in his untutored youth practised his native gift 
of oratory on the field hands among whom he toiled, 
had given to the world the two noblest examples 
of American eloquence. "With malice toward none, 
with charity for all," came forth from his soul 
like a chant, while his closing words fell upon the 
thronged esplanade with the effect of a benedic- 
tion. When he had finished, some freed their 
emotions with cheers, some with tears. All went 
away as from an impressive religious ceremony. 

He had deliberately chosen to place on record in 
his inaugural the historical fact that the offence of 
slavery came by both the North and the South, 
and his belief that God had brought upon them a 
terrible war as the woe due to each section be- 
cause of that ofFence. At the same time he re- 
minded the North that God had not fully answered 
its prayers, and that the Almighty had His own 
purposes. Lincoln said he knew it would not flatter 
men to be told there was a difference in purpose 
between God and them. "It is a truth," he added, 
"which I thought needed to be told, and as what- 
2B 3 6 9 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



ever of humiliation there is in it falls more directly 
on myself, I thought others might afford for me to 
tell it." 

When the time came for Grant to leave his winter 
quarters and begin his campaign, Lincoln went 
down to the seat of war, near Richmond. He had 
already sent positive instructions to the General-in- 
chief not to decide or even discuss any political 
question with Lee. "Such questions," he added 
firmly, in the true spirit of a government where the 
civil is at all times superior to the military authority, 
"the President holds in his own hands, and will 
submit them to no military conferences or con- 
ventions." 

Feeling now that the downfall of the Confederacy 
was near, he determined to be on the scene and in 
readiness to meet any emergency which might arise. 
There he lived on a boat in the James River, 
opposite the cluster of huts on the bank which served 
as Grant's headquarters. Admiral Porter urged 
him to accept his bed, but he insisted upon not 
disturbing the Admiral, and sleeping in a small 
stateroom whose berth was four inches shorter 
than his body. "I slept well," he said the next 
morning, "but you can't put a long sword into a 
short scabbard." 

His host set carpenters to work in the absence 

37o 



LINCOLN IN VICTORY 



of his distinguished guest, to remedy the deficiency. 
The stateroom was quickly lengthened and widened, 
and the following morning Lincoln soberly reported : 
"A miracle happened last night; I shrank six inches 
in length, and about a foot sideways." The Admiral 
was positive, however, that if he had "given him 
two fence rails to sleep on, he would not have found 
fault." 

Mrs. Lincoln and Tad were sent for, and the 
elder son, Robert, came from Harvard to see a few 
days' soldiering as a member of Grant's staff. It 
proved to be more nearly a vacation than any the Presi- 
dent had been privileged to enjoy since the burdens 
of the nation had fallen upon his shoulders. The 
wife noted with pleasure that his old forebodings 
of an evil fate seemed almost to have been driven 
from his bosom by his rising spirits. He sat about 
the camp fire in the evenings, telling stories and 
listening to the officers' tales, and he devoted not 
a little of his attention to the care of a furry family, 
which Grant's cat had lately presented to the General. 

As he and Mrs. Lincoln drove about the country 
one day, they came to a remote little graveyard, 
on the banks of the James. The new green foliage 
of the trees cast its shade upon the tranquil scene, 
and the flowers of spring were budding above the 
mounds. Lincoln was so attracted to the spot, 

37 1 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



that he and his wife left their carriage, and walked 
among the graves. The restfulness of the place 
touched his fancy, and this victorious master of 
a million men in arms turned wearily from the 
vain pomp of power, and sighed for the simple 
peace about him. "Mary," he said, "you are 
younger and will survive me. When I am gone, 
lay my body in some quiet place like this." 

Sherman came from the South, and Grant, Sher- 
man, and Sheridan grouped themselves about their 
Commander-in-chief. "Must more blood be shed ?" 
Lincoln anxiously inquired. "Can't this last bloody 
battle be avoided ?" He whose voice never faltered 
in the dark days of the war, shrank from the thought 
of one more volley, now, when it seemed so needless. 
He was assured, however, that Lee would not give 
up until thoroughly beaten. 

He rode with Grant hour after hour, through 
swamps and over corduroy roads, with the ease of 
a seasoned cavalryman. The cheers of the soldiers 
swept around him wherever he appeared. He sat 
for hours in front of the camp, tilted back in his 
chair, and his hand shading his eyes, watching the 
movements of the men. 

It was on the last day of March when the Army 
of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia 
once more faced each other in battle array and began 

37 2 



LINCOLN IN VICTORY 



the fifth year of their struggle for the soil of the 
Old Dominion. Grant's legions in blue dashed into 
the fray with the spirit of confidence, while there 
were heavy hearts beneath the tattered coats of gray 
as the mere remnant of Lee's once magnificent army 
wearily but loyally gathered about their devoted 
chief in his last stand for a cause that was already 
lost. 

Lincoln waited behind, eagerly watching each 
courier as he rode in from the front. "How many 
prisoners?" was almost always his first question. 
Every capture was welcomed by him as a merciful 
hastening of the end. 

On the first of April came Sheridan's victory 
at Five Forks and the doom of Richmond. Its 
certain and immediate fall was decreed by that 
battle. The Confederate flag continued to wave 
above the Capitol, and the buying and selling of 
men, women, and children went on, even when the 
columns of freedom were advancing upon the city. 
A man would still bring one hundred dollars in 
gold. 

Jefferson Davis sat in his pew listening to the 
prayer for the President of the Confederate States, 
the day after the battle of Five Forks, when word 
came to him from Lee that he, whose mighty arm 
had parried every blow at Richmond for four long 

373 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



years, could defend it no more. He must flee from 
Grant along the Appomattox River. 

The government of the Confederacy was hastily 
loaded upon trains, and Davis and his cabinet fled 
southward. Silver plate and family treasures were 
taken from the old homes of the aristocracy and 
buried beyond the sight of the pillaging invaders, 
at whose approach the city trembled. Some masters 
collected their slaves beside the railway and sought 
safety in flight for their property in human beings; 
but the institution of bondage perished while the 
bondmen waited there in their chains. 

The military supplies were fired by the Con- 
federates as they quit the town, which soon was 
ablaze. Liquors were emptied into the gutters 
and scooped up in pans and buckets by whites and 
blacks, who became frenzied from drink. The en- 
tire place was speeding to a mad destruction when 
in the early hours of Monday morning the vanguard 
of the Union forces, which had cautiously entered 
the outer intrenchments' only to find them deserted, 
whirled into Richmond. 

On their heels came the negro troopers of a 
cavalry regiment, their waving swords a sign of 
deliverance for the people of their race who ran 
beside the proud horsemen shouting for joy. The 
flag of the nation was hoisted again upon the Capitol 

374 



LINCOLN IN VICTORY 



of Virginia, and the Union commander established 
his headquarters in the house of the fugitive Presi- 
dent of the Confederacy. 

Richmond had fallen, and Richmond was saved. 
For the army of the Union did not come to loot 
or triumph. On the contrary, it extinguished the 
roaring flames that were devouring the city, fed the 
hungry of the long-besieged and starving capital, 
and repressed the drunken rioters and robbers and 
loosened convicts who had struck terror to every 
home. 

"I want to see Richmond," Lincoln said, with 
a curiosity as simple as a boy's, when he heard of 
the capture of the stronghold against which he had 
hurled his soldiers by the hundreds of thousands. 
He went by the river from Grant's headquarters 
on Tuesday and landed from a twelve-oared barge 
near Libby Prison. There was no military escort 
to meet him, and not even a vehicle of any kind. 
Taking his boy Tad by the hand, he walked through 
the streets for a mile and a half, guarded only by 
ten sailors. 

The negroes were in ecstasy as they beheld their 
emancipator. They touched the skirt of his coat 
in awe, or prostrated themselves at his feet. He 
was annoyed and even saddened to have any human 
being humble himself before him. "Don't kneel 

375 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



to me; that is not right," he said, and a leader 
among them commanded in a hoarse whisper, "Sh — 
sh — be still; heah our Saviour speak." Lincoln 
continued: "You must kneel to God only. I am 
but God's humble instrument; but you may rest 
assured that as long as I live no one shall put a 
shackle on your limbs." 

He told them they were as free as he was, and 
even freer, for they had less care and worry. "God 
bless you and let me pass on," he said to them as 
he moved forward with difficulty through the black 
mass. Again, in the strange progress of this modest 
conqueror an old slave lifted his hat, and the Presi- 
dent returned the salutation by lifting his, whereat 
the crowd of negroes who followed him gaped in 
wonder to see a white man uncover to a black. 

Lincoln went on until he came to the "White 
House of the Confederacy," which Davis had left 
only thirty-six hours before. The day was hot and 
the perspiration ran down his face as he entered 
the old mansion. Walking into the office, he seated 
himself at a desk. "This must have been President 
Davis's chair," he said, as his hands rested on its 
arms, and he leaned against its comfortable back. 

There he sat in revery, gazing into space, while not 
unlikely his sympathies were touched by the misfor- 
tunes of the exiled master of the house. "He ought 

376 



LINCOLN IN VICTORY 



to be hanged," some one said in his passion against 
Davis. "Judge not, that ye be not judged," was 
Lincoln's only reply. 

He returned to the army headquarters on the river 
at night, but came again to Richmond on Wednesday. 
He sought out the home of General Pickett, the hero 
of the memorable charge at Gettysburg, who valiantly 
but vainly made the last defence of Richmond at Five 
Forks. Lincoln forgot that Pickett was an enemy in 
the field. He remembered only his old friendship 
for him, when the famous General was a boy on a 
visit to Illinois, and he himself had obtained for 
him his appointment as a cadet at West Point. He 
found the house and knocked at the door. 

"Is this where George Pickett lives ?" he asked the 
woman who came with a baby in her arms to answer 
his summons. She said it was and that she was 
Mrs. Pickett. Then he told her who he was, pro- 
testing he came not as "the President," the title which 
she had exclaimed in her astonishment, but simply as 
" Abraham Lincoln, George's old friend." The baby 
stretched forth his little hands, and the conqueror 
took the conquered in his arms. Thus the union 
was restored beside one hearthstone at least. 

Lincoln tarried at Grant's headquarters until the 
morning of the day on which Lee surrendered his 
famished army. " Get them to ploughing and gather- 

377 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



ing in their own little crops," he said as he discussed 
the terms that should be offered to the vanquished, 
"and eating pop-corn at their own firesides, and you 
can't get them to shoulder a musket again for half a 
century." 

It was Sunday. The end of the great Civil War 
was at hand, "the mightiest struggle and the most 
glorious victory as yet recorded in human annals," 
according to the judgment of Mommsen, the eminent 
German historian. The North was still ringing with 
the echoes of the people's rejoicing over the fall of 
Richmond, and to-morrow all the bells would peal 
forth the glad tidings from Appomattox. The new 
birth of freedom, to which Lincoln had dedicated the 
nation among the dead at Gettysburg, he had seen 
with his own eyes, and government of the people, by 
the people, for the people, was saved from wreck. 

As he sailed up the Potomac, he read aloud these 
words from Macbeth : — 

" Duncan is in his grave; 
After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well. 
Treason has done its worst; nor steel, nor poison, 
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing 
Can touch him further." 

A second time he read this passage from Shake- 
speare, seemingly fascinated by the words. The 
boat approached Washington, the white dome of 

378 



LINCOLN IN VICTORY 



the Capitol swimming in the sky. As Mrs. Lincoln 

looked upon their journey's end, an expression of 

dread came into her face. 

"That city," she said, "is filled with our enemies." 
"Enemies!" Lincoln replied, as if the word had 

no place in the new era of peace, "we must never 

speak of that." 



379 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



From 
THE HARVARD COMMEMORATION ODE 

By James Russell Lowell 
1865 

Nature, they say, doth dote, 

And cannot make a man 

Save on some worn-out plan, 

Repeating us by rote: 
For him her Old World mould aside she threw, 

And, choosing sweet clay from the breast 

Of the unexhausted West, 

With stuff untainted shaped a hero new, 
Wise, steadfast in the strength of God, and true. 

How beautiful to see 
Once more a shepherd of mankind indeed, 
Who loved his charge, but never loved to lead; 
One whose meek flock the people joyed to be, 

Not lured by any cheat of birth, 

But by his clear-grained human worth, 
And brave old wisdom of sincerity ! 

They knew that outward grace is dust; 

They could not choose but trust 
In that sure-footed mind's unfaltering skill, 

And supple-tempered will 
That bent like perfect steel to spring again and thrust. 

Nothing of Europe here, 
Or, then, of Europe fronting mornward still, 

Ere any names of Serf and Peer 

Could Nature's equal scheme deface; 
380 



LOWELL'S ODE 



Here was a type of the true elder race, 

And one of Plutarch's men talked with us face to face. 

***** 

Great captains, with their guns and drums, 

Disturb our judgment for the hour, 
But at last silence comes; 
These all are gone, and, standing like a tower, 
Our children shall behold his fame, 

The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, 

New birth of our new soil, the first American. 



38i 



CHAPTER XXXIII 

THE DEATH OF LINCOLN 



To win the hearts of his foes, his chief care in his closing days. — 
No exulting at the White House over the conquered South. — 
Lincoln's last speech, April n, 1865. — His anxiety for a speedy 
restoration of the Union. — His strange dream the night before 
his assassination. — His last cabinet meeting, held on the fatal 
Friday. — Peace and good-will his watchwords. — "We must 
extinguish our resentments." — Fondly planning the future 
with his wife. — Her unhappy premonition. — Their theater 
party with Major Rathbone and the daughter of Senator Harris 
of New York as their guests. — Lincoln assassinated in a box 
at Ford's Theater, April 14, by John Wilkes Booth. — Escape 
of the assassin. — Secretary Seward stabbed by Lewis Powell, 
alias Payne, one of Booth's accomplices. — Death of Lincoln, 
April 15. 

Lincoln's chief care on returning to his post of 
duty seemed to be to win the hearts of his foes. 

He longed to see the great armies of both sides dis- 
perse and the soldiers return to the ways of peace. 
The North was wild with joy over the ending of the 
war. Probably no other event in history ever was 
so universally celebrated among any people. The 
multitude felt it was their victory, won by themselves 
and for themselves. 

Yet if Lincoln could have had his choice, not a 
salute would have been fired or a bell rung in triumph 

382 



THE DEATH OF LINCOLN 



over his defeated countrymen in the South. He 
would have had the nation at large emulate the spirit 
of Grant at Appomattox when he ordered the artil- 
lery to stop firing in honor of Lee's surrender. 

At a serenade the next day, Lincoln called on the 
band to play "Dixie," and, as its stirring strains 
echoed through the White House, his foot kept time 
to the battle song of the Confederacy. A great 
crowd coming to rejoice with him on the night of 
the second day after the surrender, he appeared at a 
window and read his speech while a man at his elbow 
held a lamp above his manuscript. 

He spoke to the humbled vanquished rather than 
to the exultant victors, and in a tone of the utmost 
soberness. "It may be my duty," he said in con- 
cluding, "to make some new announcement to the 
people of the South. I am considering, and shall 
not fail to act when satisfied that action will be 
proper." 

April 14 fell on Good Friday. It is doubtful, 
however, if the religious significance of the day oc- 
curred to Lincoln's mind, for he always lived among 
a people who were not used to observing it as the 
anniversary of the crucifixion of the Saviour. 

By his own selection it was the occasion for raising 
above the ruins of Fort Sumter the flag which had 
been lowered there four years before. Anderson, 

383 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



its defender then, was the central figure in the cere- 
mony, and the orator of the day eloquently thanked 
God that Lincoln had been spared to behold the 
glorious fulfilment of his labors for the Union. 

An unwonted ease and happiness seemed to rest 
upon the President. Robert returned from the army 
and for an hour his father listened to the young man's 
account of what he had seen and done. 

General Grant, the captor of three armies, came, 
wearing modestly his latest and noblest honors. 
There was still a Confederate army in the field in 
North Carolina, under Johnston, and Grant was 
worried because no report of its capture had been 
received from Sherman. Lincoln was sure that good 
news would soon come, for he had had a dream the 
night before, the same dream which had been the 
forerunner of other great events. He dreamed he was 
in a strange ship, moving rapidly toward a dark and 
indefinite shore. This was the vision which he had 
seen in his sleep before the battles of Antietam, 
Murfreesboro, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg, and he 
was confident it meant now that Sherman had de- 
feated, or was about to defeat, Johnston. What else 
could it mean ? He knew of no other important 
event that was pending. 

Mrs. Lincoln joined in welcoming the victorious 
General-in-chief, and, as a return for the courtesies 

384 



THE DEATH OF LINCOLN 



she had lately received at his headquarters, invited 
him and Mrs. Grant to go to the theater in the even- 
ing. The General promised to consider the invi- 
tation, and Mrs. Lincoln sent a messenger to Ford's 
Theater with a request for a box. 

Within an hour, John Wilkes Booth called at the 
theater for his mail, which he was accustomed to re- 
ceive there, and a man in the office spoke to him of 
the distinguished party that was coming to the even- 
ing performance. Booth's was a familiar and dra- 
matic figure in the streets of Washington. He was 
a handsome young man of twenty-eight, who was 
generally regarded as a person of dark but harmless 
moods. As an actor, his gifts were by no means 
worthy of his name, which had been made famous 
by the genius of his brother Edwin and his father, 
Junius Brutus. 

Throughout the war he vaunted his loyalty to the 
South, and his hostility to the Union preyed upon his 
never well-balanced mind. It is apparent that the 
news he heard at the theater instantly determined 
him to carry out a desperate project which had long 
been in his thoughts, and he called into council a 
group of mad adventurers. 

It was cabinet day at the White House. When 
Lincoln took his seat at the head of the table, Stan- 
ton had not come. While waiting for the Secretary 

2C 385 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



of War, the President told again the story of his 
dream voyage in a phantom ship toward an unseen 
shore. 

The uppermost topic of discussion at the meet- 
ing was the policy to be pursued toward the states 
of the South, as well as toward Jefferson Davis 
and various other principals in the war against the 
Union. Lincoln said he regarded it as providential 
that Congress was not in session to interfere in the 
matter of reconstruction. He believed that by wise 
and discreet action the administration could set 
the states upon their feet, secure order, and reestab- 
lish the Union before the meeting of Congress in 
December. 

As to the treatment of the Confederate leaders, he 
said with much feeling that no one need expect he 
would take any part in hanging these men, even the 
worst of them. " Frighten them out of the country," 
he cried, in a high-pitched voice. "Open the gates ! 
Let down the bars! Scare them off!" and he 
threw up his arms as if to drive a herd of sheep. 
"Enough lives have been sacrificed," he continued. 
"We must extinguish our resentments, if we expect 
harmony and union." 

He expressed his dislike of the disposition of some 
persons to hector and dictate to the people of the 
South. "All must begin to act in the interest of 

386 



THE DEATH OF LINCOLN 



peace." Such was his parting injunction to the cabi- 
net, and the members left him with this sentiment 
of a generous statesmanship ringing in their ears. 

He was in high spirits, but Stanton was troubled 
at the thought of both the President and the General- 
in-chief exposing themselves in a theater box at a 
time of intense excitement when there were men 
abroad who had been made desperate by defeat. 
Lincoln, however, was an avowed fatalist, believing, 
as he often said, that what is to be will be, regard- 
less of anything we may do. Thus it will be remem- 
bered he argued with Herndon in the old law office, 
that Caesar had been appointed to die by Brutus's 
hand, even as Brutus had been foreordained to 
slay Caesar. 

Moreover, assassination never had stained the 
pages of American history. Lincoln paid no atten- 
tion to the many threatening messages which came to 
him, and kept only a few of them, which he labeled 
"Assassination Letters" and laid away in his desk. 
"If I am killed, I can die but once," he protested on 
one occasion; "but to live in constant dread of it, is 
to die over and over again." 

Stanton repeated his warning to Grant. Whether 
the General was influenced by this is not known, but 
at any rate he withdrew his acceptance of Mrs. Lin- 
coln's invitation and with his wife left the city in the 

387 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



early evening to visit their daughter, who was at 
school in New Jersey. 

The President and Mrs. Lincoln went for a drive 
in the afternoon, he expressing a wish that they 
should go alone. Tender recollections came back 
to him, and he spoke of their early struggle to- 
gether, their home in Springfield, and their friends. 
"We have laid by some money," he continued, 
"and during this term we will try to save up more. 
Then we will go back to Illinois." He meant, when 
he returned, to go on practising law. He hoped 
first, however, they would see a little of the old 
world and visit California. 

Mrs. Lincoln was so unused to finding him care 
free, that her superstition was aroused by his light- 
headedness. She told herself it was unreal, and 
could not last. "I have seen you thus only once 
before," she reminded him; "it was just before our 
dear Willie died." 

When the evening paper came out, it carried this 
announcement of the theater management: "Lieu- 
tenant-general Grant, President and Mrs. Lincoln 
and ladies, will occupy the state box at Ford's 
Theater to-night, to witness Miss Laura Keene's 
company in Tom Taylor's 'American Cousin." 

Already Booth's conspiracy was complete, and his 
evil secret, which it might be supposed he could find 

388 



THE DEATH OF LINCOLN 



no one to keep, was in the breasts of his trusted 
followers. 

Soon after Lincoln returned from his drive, an offi- 
cial of the War Department called to report that Jacob 
Thompson, formerly Secretary of the Interior of the 
United States, and during the war the leader of the 
group of Confederates who had made Canada their 
headquarters in their operations against the Union, 
was about to escape from Portland, Maine, by a 
steamer sailing for Europe. Stanton wished to arrest 
Thompson. "Well," the President said to his caller, 
who had informed him of Stanton's wishes," I rather 
guess not. When you have an elephant on your 
hands, and he wants to run away, better let him run." 

Lincoln was detained by visitors in the evening, 
and was late in starting for the theater. On the way, 
he and his wife were joined by a happy young 
couple, lately betrothed, and whom they had invited 
in place of the Grants. It was nine o'clock when 
they entered their box to the orchestral strains of 
"Hail to the Chief," and amid the hearty cheering 
of a crowded house. Lincoln seated himself in a 
rocking chair, near the railing, and the members of 
his party settled themselves to enjoy the comedy, 
which later gained celebrity under the name of 
"Lord Dundreary," the elder Sothern making a 
notable success of the title role. 

389 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Meanwhile Booth, impatiently awaiting the time 
which he had chosen for his appearance at the 
theater, paced up and down Pennsylvania Avenue. 
As the hour drew near, he went to a bar and min- 
istered to his madness by taking a large drink of 
brandy. Then he sauntered into the theater, and at 
ten o'clock was seen strolling along the wall aisle of 
the balcony toward the state box. Within, sat the 
Commander-in-chief of mighty armies, without a 
soldier to guard him. 

Booth, stepping into the little anteroom of the 
box, barred the door behind him with a piece of wood, 
which one of his dupes, an employee of the theater, 
had placed there for the purpose. Peeping through 
a hole which this fellow had bored for him, he looked 
upon his illustrious prey, and noted his position. 
Thus prepared, he noiselessly opened the door. 

The audience was roaring with laughter over the 
farcical lines of the one actor on the stage at the 
moment. A little while before, Lincoln had been 
speaking with his wife, his thoughts still fondly dwell- 
ing on plans for their future, and he had closed his 
remarks by saying, "There is no place I should like 
so much to see as Jerusalem." 

There he sat, "with malice toward none, with 
charity for all," without a personal enemy in the 
world. Could Booth have looked into his coun- 

39o 



THE DEATH OF LINCOLN 



tenance, its simple benignity might have appealed to 
his better nature, as the frenzied intruder paused for 
a second on the verge of his awful deed. But stealing 
upon him from behind, he fired his cowardly shot. 

Lincoln rose from his chair under the impulse of 
the shock, and then sank back, his head drooping and 
his eyes closed, only to open again upon the unseen 
shore of that mysterious bourne, toward which he had 
sailed in his dream-ship the night before. By a 
great mercy, he neither saw the assassin nor felt 
the wound. 

The young man in the party sprang at the murderer, 
who let his pistol fall as he plunged a knife in the 
arm outstretched to restrain him. A realization of 
the terrible scene slowly dawned upon the bewildered 
mind of Mrs. Lincoln, and she screamed. The 
wife's cry aroused the stupefied audience to the great 
tragedy which had supplanted the comedy they were 
watching. They saw the handsome face of Booth, 
his eyes lustrous with passion, as he leaned out of the 
box, blade in hand, making ready to leap upon the 
stage. 

The distance was only nine feet, and Booth had 
often made a jump of twelve feet from a rock while 
playing in " Macbeth." In his flying descent now, 
however, his spur caught in an American flag, with 
which the front of the President's box had been 

39 1 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



draped, and he fell upon the stage, dragging down 
the flag in his fall. His leg was broken, but with 
the strength of a crazed man, he quickly rose and 
drew his knife through the air, shouting, "Sic semper 
tyrannis," the motto on the seal of Virginia. 

To his distracted mind it was all a play, and he 
but a player. His lines spoken, his part finished, he 
strode from the stage. At the stage door stood a 
boy holding a horse, hired for the occasion, and 
crouching on its back, Booth dashed away in the light 
of the moon, the animal's hoof beats clattering noisily 
in the stillness of the night, and the rider squirming 
in pain from the broken bone which was tearing 
through the flesh of his leg. 

Men rushed to Lincoln's box, to find its door 
secured against their entrance. An army surgeon in 
the audience, climbing up on another man's back, 
made his way into the front of the box. The door 
was unbarred, and one or two other doctors came. 

It was seen at once that the bullet had entered the 
back of the head and crashed into the brain. Lin- 
coln must die, meeting the fate which had brooded 
over him from youth, and which he had long fore- 
boded. It seems as if it were written in the book of 
life, that this man of trials and disappointments 
should not live to enjoy the success which he had 
achieved, or the applause of the world which he 

392 



THE DEATH OF LINCOLN 



had won. The irony of it was that he, the faithful 
son and loving father of the people, should be struck 
down as a tyrant. 

He was lifted from the chair into which he had 
sunk. With a doctor holding his head, and others 
supporting the stricken body and legs, he was borne 
from the theater, men going ahead and tearing the 
seats from the floor to make a passageway. Mrs. 
Lincoln, only less helpless than her husband, was led 
after him, and as the little procession left the audi- 
torium, the curtain was lowered forever upon the 
stage of Ford's Theater. 

It was felt the President could not survive a ride 
over the cobblestones to the White House in his 
waiting carriage, and those who were bearing him 
paused on the sidewalk, not knowing which way to 
turn. A lodger in the house of a tailor, opposite the 
theater, came to the door to learn the cause of the 
commotion on the street, and he told them to bring 
the wounded man to his room. Lincoln was carried 
into the house, his blood dripping on the steps. 
There he was taken into a little room, where he was 
laid diagonally upon the bed, which was shorter 
than his body. 

In the meantime the excited crowd from the theater 
poured into Pennsylvania Avenue, spreading as they 
went the direful news of what they had seen. Soon 

393 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



they were met by others, equally excited, who said 
that Seward had been assassinated in his home. 

Stanton, hearing first of this latter crime, was has- 
tening to the house of the Secretary of State when 
he was astounded by the report of the murderous 
attack on the President. Naturally fearing there was 
a plot afoot to paralyze the government, he closed the 
liquor saloons, threw a heavy guard around the house 
where the President lay, placed the city under martial 
control, and took general command. 

The bitter suspicion started in his mind and in the 
public mind generally, that some of the Confederate 
leaders, blinded by the misfortunes of war, had con- 
spired with the assassins. In this way Booth's horrid 
act at once wrought a grievous injury to the very 
people who, in his wild mania, he fancied he was 
serving. The true friend of the disarmed and pros- 
trate South was struck down, while his heart throbbed 
with generosity toward the conquered states, and in 
a flash Lincoln's policy of peace and good-will was 
dashed to the earth. 

All through the hopeless night, death battled with 
the giant strength of Lincoln. He moaned con- 
tinually, but happily he was unconscious of the long 
struggle which was so painful for others to watch. 
Statesmen and generals were about him, not ashamed 
of their tears, while Mrs. Lincoln grieved in a 

394 



THE DEATH OF LINCOLN 



near-by room. The night was as dismal without as 
within, for a raw and drizzling rain had set in and 
continued to fall throughout the following day. 

Hour by hour the pulse of the dying man grew 
weaker. At twenty-two minutes after seven in the 
morning of Saturday, April 15, it ceased to beat, and 
turning from the mortal Lincoln, Stanton hoarsely 
whispered, "Now he belongs to the ages." 



395 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



O CAPTAIN ! MY CAPTAIN ! 

By Walt Whitman 
1865 

O Captain ! my Captain ! our fearful trip is done, 
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won, 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, 
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; 
But O heart! heart! heart! 
O the bleeding drops of red, 

Where on the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; 

Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills, 

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths — for you the shores 

a-crowding, 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning; 
Here Captain ! dear father ! 
This arm beneath your head ! 

It is some dream that on the deck, 
You've fallen cold and dead. 

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will, 
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done, 
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won; 
Exult O shores, and ring O bells! 
But I with mournful tread, 

Walk the deck my Captain lies, 
Fallen cold and dead. 
396 



CHAPTER XXXIV 

SORROW OF THE WORLD 






The day that Lincoln died unique in history. — National joy 
turned to universal grief. — "God reigns and the government 
at Washington still lives." — A revolution in the policies of the 
nation wrought in a day. — Unseemly rejoicing by the radicals. 
— Lincoln's plans of reconciliation supplanted by a bitter 
suspicion of the South. — Jefferson Davis arraigned as an ac- 
complice in the assassination. — The punishment of Booth and 
his plotters. — The awful fate which pursued the President's 
companions in the theater box. — The widow's mind broken 
by the blow. — Lincoln's estate. — The funeral day, April 19, 
1865, observed all over the country. — The body lying in state 
at the Capitol. — The sixteen-hundred-mile journey to Spring- 
field began April 21. — A million Americans looked upon the 
face of their dead chieftain. — The arrival of the remains in 
Springfield, May 3. — The burial at Oak Ridge, May 4. 

The Saturday that Lincoln died stands alone in 
history. There never was another day like it. A 
victorious people awoke to continue their week of 
rejoicing. All the North was gayly decked. In an 
hour the land was engulfed by a tidal wave of grief 
and rage. 

It was no mere show, no ceremonial tribute of 
a nation to its chief. On the contrary, millions 
mourned the loss, not of an official but of a friend. 
Men met in the streets, in the stores and in the shops, 

397 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



with tears in their eyes, and their throats aching with 
emotion. Sorrow filled the homes. Services in the 
churches on Easter Sunday were robbed of their 
usual joyousness. 

No other death ever touched so many hearts. 
People rebelled against the cruelty of their bereave- 
ment, and a bitter spirit of revenge toward the South 
burned in their breasts. Stanton feared that wild 
rumors might cause panic and disorder in New York, 
and while Lincoln was dying he arranged for a public 
meeting to be held in Wall Street in the early morning. 
Garfield, then a member of Congress, was among 
those sent to calm the public of the metropolis, and, 
standing by the statue of Washington on the steps of 
the Sub-treasury, he thrilled the thousands who 
crowded the street with the eloquent assurance that 
" God reigns and the government at Washington still 
lives." 

Nevertheless, a revolution really had taken place. 
Benjamin Disraeli, in his speech on Lincoln in the 
British House of Commons, declared that "assassi- 
nation never has changed the history of the world." 
It is true, however, that in the flash of Booth's pistol 
shot, the policies of the government had been com- 
pletely reversed. The hands of the radicals, which 
Lincoln had restrained for four years, were free at 
last. The reign of the bayonet and the carpet-bagger, 

398 



SORROW OF THE WORLD 

the ku-klux, the shot-gun, and the "bloody shirt" 
was inaugurated in the South, and the country 
entered upon a decade of angry turmoil. 

Stanton left the death chamber to order the arrest 
of Jacob Thompson, the Confederate emissary, with 
whom the President had refused to interfere the day 
before. Extreme men in high places hailed the ac- 
cession of Vice-president Johnson to the Presidency 
as "a godsend to the country." The new President 
delighted them by declaring "treason must be made 
infamous, and traitors must be punished." Senator 
Wade of Ohio, the President of the Senate, exclaimed, 
" By the gods, there will be no trouble now in running 
the government." 

A caucus of Republican senators was held within a 
few hours of Lincoln's death, and plans were laid 
for overturning his projects for the reconstruction 
of the South. Grant himself was swept into the 
current of retaliation. "Extreme rigor will have 
to be observed," he said in a severe military de- 
spatch, "whilst assassination remains the order of 
the day with the rebels." 

Stanton proclaimed an offer of one hundred 
thousand dollars for the arrest of Jefferson Davis as 
an accomplice in the murder of Lincoln, and for two 
years the President of the fallen Confederacy was 
held in prison on that and other charges without trial. 

399 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Happily history acquits him and all responsible men 
of any knowledge of or sympathy with the assassina- 
tion. 

Booth was hunted down and shot, while four per- 
sons convicted of conspiring with him, including a 
woman, Mrs. Surratt, were hanged. A physician, 
who set the broken leg of the assassin, and two other 
men were sentenced to banishment for life on Dry 
Tortugas, one of the Florida keys, and the man who 
bored the hole in the theater box was condemned to 
pass six years on that remote and lonely island. 

The future held in store for the innocent com- 
panions of Lincoln on the night of the assassination 
a fate not less terrible than that which befell the guilty 
companions of the assassin. The widow's always 
frail nervous organization was wrecked by the shock. 
She raved throughout the dreadful night that fol- 
lowed, and throwing herself upon the corpse in the 
morning, it was with difficulty that she was persuaded 
to leave. As she was led to the White House car- 
riage which had stood at the door through the long 
hours, she cast a glance at the theater and cried in 
bitterness, "Oh, that horrible house! " 

The only mitigation of her misfortune lay in the 
small competence which her husband left her and her 
children. Aside from the real estate, which he owned 
when he went to Washington and which he still held 

400 



SORROW OF THE WORLD 



at his death, he died possessed of a personal estate 
valued at more than one hundred thousand dol- 
lars. Since he never was a money maker and was 
obliged to borrow in order to pay his expenses in his 
first months in the White House, he must have been 
fortunate in the choice of a wise financial adviser, 
thus to have accumulated amid absorbing cares a 
personal property, equaling in value the total of the 
salary he received as President. 

Mrs. Lincoln went to live in England and France, 
but she found no refuge, even in far-away lands, from 
the relentless specter which pursued her. The picture 
of the frightful scene in the theater was imprinted for- 
ever on her broken mind. She continually dwelt on it 
in her thought and conversation. For some time she 
was in a private asylum near Chicago, while her later 
years were passed in a sister's home at Springfield. 

The young couple who were her guests in the 
box, married, but the wife was slain by the crazed 
husband. 

Lincoln's was the kindest fate of all. His body 
was removed from the modest dwelling of the tailor 
to the Green Room of the White House, where it 
was enthroned on a splendid catafalque. There it 
lay in state, resting beneath the roof where, living, 
he had found only toil and care. A peace, not of 
this world, was in the upturned face, in striking con- 
2D 4 QI 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



trast to the turbulent passions which disturbed 
the men who gathered about the bier. 

Seward, who had been stabbed while in bed by 
one of the conspirators and narrowly escaped death, 
was not told of Booth's crime. He could only wonder 
why his kind and thoughtful chief did not call, for he 
felt he would be the first to visit him in his affliction. 
On Sunday, when he caught a glimpse from where 
he lay of a flag at half staff, the meaning of it 
flashed on his mind. 

The funeral was held in the White House on 
Wednesday, and all the people of the North rever- 
ently kept the day. Not a kinsman of the lonely man 
was among the mourners, but races and sects were 
knit together in a kinship of sorrow for this brother 
of man. Queen Victoria sent her condolences to 
Mrs. Lincoln, " as from a widow to a widow." 

More than kingly honors were paid the mortal 
remains of one who entered the world through a hovel 
of logs. He was borne to the Capitol, where many 
thought his appropriate sepulture was in the crypt 
built for the bones of Washington, his only peer in 
American history. Illinois, however, claimed his 
dust, as the rightful heritage of her soil. The 
prairies must be hallowed by the grave of the first 
great man to be nurtured by them. 

Cities and states begged the privilege of honoring 

402 



SORROW OF THE WORLD 



his body on its way to the grave. Arrangements 
were made for the cortege to pass over nearly the 
same route which Lincoln had followed on his way 
to the capital four years before. At Philadelphia, 
Liberty Bell was placed at the head of his coffin in 
Independence Hall, where, in 1861, he had solemnly 
declared he would rather be assassinated then and 
there than surrender the Union. 

Hundreds of thousands looked upon his face in 
New York. A multitude of people from all over the 
upper part of the Empire State gathered at Albany, 
and were in waiting at midnight when the body was 
placed in the Capitol. 

At every little station the people gathered and stood 
with bared heads as the funeral train swept by. 
Arches were erected over the track of the railroad. 
Bonfires lit the way by night. The people of the West 
assembled in Chicago, to bend in reverence above the 
bier of the first President they had given to the nation. 

Springfield, proud in her grief, welcomed home the 
familiar form of her immortal citizen. It was carried 
in honor to the hall of the House of Representatives, 
where the now silent lips had aroused a people to 
battle for freedom. There it lay, surrounded by the 
scenes and friends of his early struggles. 

His loving stepmother lived to mourn the wilder- 
ness waif, whom she had reared for his wonderful 

403 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



destiny, but she was too feeble from age to attend his 
funeral. The news of his assassination did not sur- 
prise her, for she had dreaded it every day since he 
left her to enter upon his duties at Washington. 

His sign still swung in front of the old law office, 
and from the country about New Salem and Clary's 
Grove simple men and women brought their tribute 
of tears, not to the dead President, but to the good 
neighbor, who had helped them in the field, in the 
forest, or on the highway, and with whom they 
had shared the crust of poverty. Long before the 
world knew him and enrolled him among the great, 
they knew him and honored him. In the imposing 
procession to the tomb, "Old Bob," the horse that 
had carried him on his travels around the circuit, 
walked behind the funeral car of his dead master. 

The prairie was in its Maytime bloom, when Lin- 
coln was laid to rest on its bosom, beside his Willie 
and the other little boy who had died in early child- 
hood, where Tad soon joined him, and where, after 
seventeen years of weary waiting, the distracted wife 
and mother found the peace for which she yearned. 
Above his grave, a lofty monument was reared by 
his countrymen, and thousands of black men, from 
whose ankles he had struck the shackles of slavery, 
contributed for its erection out of the earnings of 
their free labor. 

404 



PUNCH'S TRIBUTE 



From 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

Foully murdered, April 14, 1865 

By Tom Taylor in London Punch 

May 6, 1865 

You lay a wreath on murdered Lincoln's bier! 

You, who with mocking pencil wont to trace, 
Broad for the self-complacent British sneer, 

His length of shambling limb, his furrowed face. 

His gaunt, gnarled hands, his unkempt, bristling hair, 

His garb uncouth, his bearing ill at ease, 
His lack of all we prize as debonair, 

Of power or will to shine, of art to please; 

Beside this corpse, that bears for winding-sheet 
The stars and stripes he lived to rear anew, 

Between the mourners at his head and feet, 
Say, scurrile jester, is there room for you ? 

Yes; he had liv'd to shame me from my sneer, 
To lame my pencil, and confute my pen, 

To make me own this hind of princes peer, 
This rail-splitter, a true-born king of men. 

My shallow judgment I had learn'd to rue, 
Noting how to occasion's height he rose; 

How his quaint wit made home-truth seem more true; 
How, iron-like, his temper grew by blows; 

How humble, yet how hopeful he could be; 

How in good fortune and in ill the same; 
Nor bitter in success, nor boastful he, 

Thirsty for gold, nor feverish for fame. 
405 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



So he went forth to battle, on the side 

That he felt clear was Liberty's and Right's, 
As in his peasant boyhood he had plied 
His warfare with rude Nature's thwarting mights, — 

The uncleared forest, the unbroken soil, 

The iron bark that turns the lumberer's axe, 

The rapid that o'erbears the boatman's toil, 

The prairie hiding the maz'd wanderer's tracks, 

The ambush'd Indian, and the prowling bear, — 
Such were the deeds that help'd his youth to train: 

Rough culture, but such trees large fruit may bear, 
If but their stocks be of right girth and grain. 

So he grew up, a destin'd work to do, 

And liv'd to do it; four long suffering years' 

111 fate, ill feeling, ill report, liv'd through, 

And then he heard the hisses change to cheers, 

The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise, 
And took both with the same unwavering mood, — 

Till, as he came on light from darkling days, 
And seem'd to touch the goal from where he stood, 

A felon hand, between the goal and him, 

Reach'd from behind his back, a trigger prest — 
And those perplex'd and patient eyes were dim, 
Those gaunt, long-laboring limbs were laid to rest. 

The words of mercy were upon his lips, 
Forgiveness in his heart and on his pen, 

When this vile murderer brought swift eclipse 
To thoughts of peace on earth, good wild to men. 

406 



CHAPTER XXXV 

A COURSE IN LINCOLN 



Some of the more notable Lincoln books, by means of which a 
course of reading may be planned and the most inspiring ethical 
lesson in American biography may be studied. — A long line 
of side reading. — Lincoln in poetry. 

I have ventured to borrow the title and text of this 
chapter from Charles E. Hughes, who, speaking as 
the Governor of New York, at a Lincoln Birthday 
meeting, expressed the wish that "in our colleges, 
and wherever young men are trained, particularly 
for political life, there could be a course in Lincoln." 

My purpose is twofold. I wish to make some 
acknowledgment, inadequate as it necessarily must 
be, of the sources from which I have derived inspira- 
tion and material for this narrative, and at the same 
time to point inquiring readers the way to a fuller 
knowledge of Lincoln than may be gained from any 
single story or interpretation of his life. 

There is no more companionable figure in history, 
and, for my own part, my memory dwells with grat- 
itude on the very titles of most of the books to 
which I owe what knowledge I have of him, and 
with which I have passed so many pleasant and 

407 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



profitable hours while pursuing a "course in Lin- 

n. 

Whether an eminent British educator was gifted 
with prophecy when he said that in the future " morals 
will be taught only through biography," the character 
and career of Lincoln present an inspiring ethical 
lesson such as Americans, at least, cannot draw from 
any other man in history. He lived the life of 
America so completely as to touch it at every grade, 
and in nearly all its phases. 

Moreover, the elements were so varied and mixed 
in his nature as to make him in an unusual degree 
"all things to all men." Numerous as the books 
about him already are, it is to be hoped they and the 
readers of them will continue to increase and multi- 
ply, for no two writers depict the same man in the 
same mood. 

Foremost among the works to which Lincoln 
writers and readers alike are indebted stands that 
monumental structure, "Abraham Lincoln, A His- 
tory," by his secretaries, John G. Nicolay and John 
Hay. Nicolay and Hay have not only left in their 
ten volumes a life of the man, but as well a history of 
his times. 

William H. Herndon, Lincoln's law partner, aided 
by Jesse W. Weik, compressed into his two volumes a 
work which is unique in American biography. In its 

408 



A COURSE IN LINCOLN 



intimacy, its sincere criticism, and its thoroughness, 
this life of Lincoln offers an extraordinary portrait. 

Ida M. Tarbell's Life, which is published in 
four volumes and in two volumes, deservedly ranks 
high among Lincoln books, not only because of the 
vitality of Miss Tarbell's story, but as well by reason 
of the diligent and enterprising research that it rep- 
resents, and which seems to have sought out and 
exhausted every neglected witness. 

"The Everyday Life of Abraham Lincoln," by 
Francis F. Browne, has a wealth of anecdote and 
reminiscence in its single volume, while William 
Eleroy Curtis's "True Abraham Lincoln" abounds 
in entertaining and graphic pictures of the man, de- 
rived from men who knew him in the flesh. Norman 
Hapgood's "Abraham Lincoln, the Man of the 
People " is a virile exposition of the subject, while 
John Tyler Morse's Life, in two volumes, is an 
able and critical study of Lincoln and his work. 

Isaac N. Arnold, in preparing his Life, well im- 
proved an advantage only second, if not equal, to 
Herndon, and Nicolay and Hay, for as a brother 
lawyer at the bar of Illinois, and as a member of 
Congress in war time, he was long associated with 
Lincoln. Ward H. Lamon's Life is another book 
based on a personal relationship with the subject. 
Henry J. Raymond's Life is specially interesting 

409 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



among the earliest Lincoln books, as it presents the 
view of one who himself played a prominent part in 
the politics of the war period. John G. Holland 
is another of the pioneers in the Lincoln biographi- 
cal field, and his simple story still holds its charm 
after the lapse of years. 

F. B. Carpenters "Six Months in the White 
House" is from the pen of the artist whose brush 
painted the familiar picture of the "Reading of the 
Emancipation Proclamation," and is one of the most 
readable of all contributions to Lincoln literature. 
Henry C. Whitney's "Life on the Circuit with Lin- 
coln " is a racy portrayal of the man in a picturesque 
background, by a fellow circuit rider, and the volume 
has an attractive atmosphere peculiar to it. 

"Recollections of Abraham Lincoln," by L. E. 
Chittendon, is a book crowded with memory pictures, 
which the author gained while an official of the Lin- 
coln administration. Alonzo Rothschild's "Lincoln, 
Master of Men " is laid out on an original plan and 
executed with skill. "Personal Recollections of 
Abraham Lincoln," by James R. Gilmore, affords 
not a few novel glimpses, while "Washington in 
Lincoln's Time," by Noah Brooks, presents some 
impressive scenes, clearly drawn by the hand of a 
trusted friend of the President. 

"Abraham Lincoln," by Carl Schurz, is a luminous 

410 



A COURSE IN LINCOLN 



appreciation, and coupled with it in its latest reprint- 
ing is a highly suggestive essay by Truman H. Bart- 
lett, on "The Physiognomy of Lincoln." Professor 
Bartlett, who has long been a student of Lincoln por- 
traits, aggressively combats the common impression 
that Lincoln was a man of ungainly appearance and 
awkward movement. He sees a statuesque beauty 
in the outer Lincoln, corresponding to the recognized 
beauty of his mind and character, and does not hesi- 
tate to compare his life mask favorably with the 
profiles of Washington and the Greek Jove. 

It is well not only to read about a man, but also to 
go to the man himself and form impressions of him 
at first hand. To know Lincoln in this way, a reader 
must turn to the "Complete Works of Abraham 
Lincoln," edited by Nicolay and Hay. In the 
twelve volumes of this work, a diligent and enter- 
prising effort has been made to present every authen- 
tic line in existence from the man's speeches and writ- 
ings. No Lincoln book is more interesting than the 
"Complete Works," which contains some attractive 
portraits, several notable tributes to Lincoln's 
memory, a thorough index, an admirable Lincoln 
bibliography by Daniel Fish, and an intelligent Lin- 
coln anthology. 

There is an unending line of side reading for the 
student of Lincoln, and I am indebted under this 

411 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



head to "Lincoln in the Telegraph Office," by D. 
H. Bates; "Lincoln, the Lawyer," by Frederick 
Trevor Hill; "Memories of the Men who saved the 
Union," by Don Piatt; "Lincoln at Gettysburg," 
by Clark E. Carr; "Recollections of Abraham Lin- 
coln," by Joshua R. Speed; "Reminiscences of 
Abraham Lincoln by Distinguished Men of His 
Time," compiled by Allen Thorndike Rice; "Grant, 
Lincoln, and the Freedmen," by John Eaton; "Lin- 
coln and Stanton," by William D. Kelley; "Memo- 
ries of Many Men and of Some Women," by Maunsell 
B. Field; "Inside the White House in War Times," 
by William O. Stoddard; "Echoes from Hospital 
and White House," by Rebecca B. Pomeroy; "The 
Spirit of Old West Point," by Morris Schaff; "Cau- 
cuses of i860," by Murat Halstead; "Recollections 
of the Civil War," by Charles A. Dana; "The Assas- 
sination of Abraham Lincoln," by Osborn H. Old- 
royd ; John Carroll Power's account of the Lincoln 
funeral and description of the Lincoln memorial at 
Springfield; "Nancy Hanks," by Caroline Hanks 
Hitchcock; "Abraham Lincoln and Men of War 
Times," by Alexander K. McClure; "Lincoln's Plan 
of Reconstruction," by Charles H. McCarthy, and 
"Lincoln and Seward," by Gideon W T elles. 

A view of a man may be gained through the eyes 
of his contemporaries, which is not afforded by any 

412 



A COURSE IN LINCOLN 



other means. Interesting and significant lights are 
shed on Lincoln by such books as Grant's "Memoirs," 
Garland's "Life of Grant," "General Grant's Letters 
to a Friend," "The Sherman Letters," Michie's " Life 
of General McClellan," Gardner's "Life of Stephen 
A. Douglas," Charles Francis Adams's Life of his 
father, Boutwell's "Sixty Years in Public Affairs," 
"Butler's Book," Cox's "Three Decades of Legisla- 
tion," Blaine's "Twenty Years of Congress," Storey's 
"Life of Sumner," McCall's "Life of Thaddeus 
Stevens," Hart's "Life of Chase," Lothrop's "Life 
of Seward," Joel Benton's "Greeley," and George W. 
Julian's "Reminiscences," while in various papers 
in the Century's "Battles and Leaders of the Civil 
War," Lincoln is incidentally shown in his relation 
to military men and movements. 

A reader of James Ford Rhodes's "History of the 
United States," and James Schouler's "History of 
the Civil War," is permitted to see Lincoln in the 
setting of his times and cannot fail to incur lasting 
obligations to those historians. Addresses on Lin- 
coln by Bancroft, Sumner, Ingersoll, Watterson, 
McKinley, Swett, and other orators, are rich in dra- 
matic pictures of the man and eloquent estimates of 
his character. 

Some excellent Lincoln reminiscences can be found 
only in the bound volumes of the magazines of several 

413 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



decades, ready access to which, however, is provided 
by Poole's Index. 

Moreover, Lincoln lives in poetry as well as in 
prose. The latter records his deeds, while the former 
gives us the spirit of the man. The historian is a 
reporter, but the poet is a prophet. In history we may 
find what a man was; it is the office of the poet to 
foretell the verdict of the future and imagine for us 
the immortal that he is to be. 

Measured by this standard, Lincoln's enduring 
greatness assumes heroic proportions. What other 
figure of the nineteenth century inspired a body of 
verse equal in quality to that which has been offered 
in tribute to him ? Much of it came forth in the year 
of his death, but it has stood the test of time. 

Walt Whitman was stirred by the passion of grief 
to produce in "O Captain! My Captain!" his most 
lyrical poem. Lowell, after delivering his "Com- 
memoration Ode" in 1865, in honor of the soldiers 
of Harvard, hastened to add to it his memorable 
tribute to Lincoln. London Punch's apology re- 
mains one of the most interesting of all the Lincoln 
poems. It is a remarkably clear estimate of his char- 
acter and picture of his career for a writer in London 
so quickly to have grasped. By a strange coinci- 
dence, the author of Punch's tribute, Tom Taylor, 
was also the author of "Our American Cousin," the 

414 



A COURSE IN LINCOLN 



play which held the boards at Ford's Theater the 
night of the assassination. 

In William Cullen Bryant's "Abraham Lincoln," 
there are other lines as good as these : — 

" Whose proudest monument shall be 
The broken fetters of the slave." 

Richard Henry Stoddard's "Horatian Ode," 
Bayard Taylor's "Gettysburg Ode," George H. 
Boker's and S. Weir Mitchell's verses, Whittier's 
"Emancipation Group," his dedicatory poem on the 
occasion of the unveiling of a monument in Boston, 
Richard Watson Gilder's "Life Mask of Abraham 
Lincoln," and a Lincoln sonnet by Edmund Clarence 
Stedman, are among other notable contributions. 
Stedman's "Hand of Lincoln" opens with a stanza 
which discloses the quality and plan of this interest- 
ing poem : — 

"Look on this cast, and know the hand 
That bore a nation in its hold; 
From this mute witness understand 

What Lincoln was — how large of mould." 

Maurice Thompson, a Confederate soldier, in his 
poem on " Lincoln's Grave," has interpreted perhaps 
best of all the full breadth of the man's sympathies, 
as these few verses may serve to show : — 

415 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



"He was the southern mother leaning forth, 

At dead of night to hear the cannon roar, 

Beseeching God to turn the cruel North 

And break it that her son might come once more; 

He was New England's maiden pale and pure, 

Whose gallant lover fell on Shiloh's plain. 
***** 

"He was the North, the South, the East, the West, 
The thrall, the master, all of us in one. 



416 



CHAPTER XXXVI 

LESSONS FROM LINCOLN 



Time and change, instead of dimming his fame, have only served 
to make his example more needed and useful. — Claimed by 
all parties and all sections. — The true prophet of the reunited 
people. — His influence growing world-wide. — Washington 
and Lincoln. — The latter belongs wholly to America. — The 
full meaning of the man remains for future generations to 
discover. — His greatness a miracle, or only the common sense 
of a common man ? — Lincoln's inspiring message to all men. 

Abraham Lincoln was born into a world very 
different from ours — so different that it seems to 
have been in another age. The bees of Bonaparte 
swarmed over Europe, and the peace of Vienna had 
left him, at the climax of his career, the master of the 
continent, from the Russian frontier to the Medi- 
terranean. George III, though in his dotage, yet 
wore the crown from which the most splendid jewel 
had been plucked by the sword of Washington. 
Africa was almost unknown, and, aside from India, 
Asia was as little known as it was five hundred years 
before. 

Along the western shore of this continent, the 
banner of Spain waved over an immense empire, 
which stretched unbroken from the Sierra Nevadas 

4i7 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



to Cape Horn. In our own flag there were only 
seventeen stars. Thomas Jefferson was the Presi- 
dent of a nation of seven million people. Robert 
Fulton's steamboat was only two years old. Ste- 
phenson's locomotive was yet twenty years away. 

Labor's burden was measured only by what it 
could bear. The black toiler was a chattel, and his 
white brother struggled beneath an industrial serf- 
dom which had every legal and social sanction. 
Women had almost as few rights at law as they had 
a cycle before, and no broader sphere of activity. 

Democracy was without a foothold in any of the 
principal countries of the Old World. England was 
still an aristocracy, and as much ruled by the few as 
at any time in the six centuries since Runnymede. 

The United States had a government for the people, 
but not yet by the people. There was a governing 
class in the town, the state, and the nation. The 
log-cabin was not regarded as a breeding-place for 
statesmen, and if a fortune-teller had whispered in 
the ear of Jefferson that the babe in Nancv Hanks's 
arms would one day sit in the President's chair, the 
imagination even of that great Democrat would 
have been staggered. 

Lincoln's death, as well as his birth, seems remote 
to the people of this generation. It is commonly 
said that life has changed quite as much in the few 

418 




St. Gaudens's Statue of Lincoln 

In Lincoln Park, Chicago 



LESSONS FROM LINCOLN 



decades which have passed since he died as it some- 
times has changed in an equal number of centuries. 
Certainly the country, which he did the most to save, 
has grown more in population in that brief period 
than it grew in the two hundred and fifty years before. 
Its growth in wealth and luxury has been even more 
astounding. One of our multi-millionaires to-day 
could have bought and sold all the millionaires of 
the world in 1865. Probably there is one railway 
system now with as much mileage as there was in all 
the land then. One city in these days has as many 
people as there were in all the cities together in those 
days. 

Life is so swift that men of middle age think of 
Abraham Lincoln as among the ancients. 

Distance, however, does not dim the fame of Lin- 
coln. The years only increase the force of the lesson 
which his life teaches. Time and change have served 
to make his example even more needed and more 
useful. 

As the strife in which he spent himself recedes and 
subsides, his figure looms larger and clearer. Con- 
troversy has fallen away from him. He no longer 
leads a party, as Jefferson and Hamilton still do. All 
parties invoke his name. In the growing harmony 
and security of the federation of states, he is ceasing 
to be the chieftain of a section. In the end all 

419 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



Southerners will claim him, as many Southerners 
already are claiming him. 

The self-respect of the new South does not require 
that a line he spoke or wrote be stricken out. He 
stands as the true prophet of the reunited people in 
this happier day, when the mere reminders of the 
battles between fellow-countrymen have long been 
dropped from the regimental standards of the army 
of the nation and the very name of rebellion has 
been discarded by the government at Washington. 

"The Union with him, in sentiment, rose to the 
sublimity of a religious mysticism," said Alexander 
H. Stephens, the Vice-president of the Confederacy, 
while Henry W. Grady, the most eloquent spokes- 
man of that great and flourishing South, which has 
risen from the devastation of war, pronounced him 
"the first typical American, the first who compre- 
hended within himself all the strength and gentleness, 
all the majesty and grace of this republic." 

In truth, Lincoln is rising above politics entirely. 
The concrete issues, for which he directly stood 
as a statesman, are of the past. He is coming more 
and more to stand for social rather than political 
principles, — for democracy in all things, in all lands. 

His countrymen are thus moving to place him on 
the broadest, firmest, and most enduring basis, where 
the vicissitudes of politics and government cannot 

420 



LESSONS FROM LINCOLN 



reach him. It well may be that in time the world 
will take him, that he will cease to be even national, 
and that all the races of his "plain people" every- 
where, catching the inspiration of his career, will 
make universal the old chant: — 

" We are coming, Father Abraham ! " 

Whether Lincoln ranks with, or outranks, Wash- 
ington, is an old but not an important question. 
Comparison is unnecessary. 

Men who may be counted off" in pairs, whether in 
history or among our everyday associates, are not 
interesting. A real man suggests no one but him- 
self. Abraham Lincoln was not made in any other 
man's mould, and when he was made his mould was 
broken. 

As a brave, adroit, and patriotic soldier, Washing- 
ton led the American people to independence. As a 
wise, prudent, and incorruptible statesman, he led 
them in establishing a government. He was the 
foremost American in the last twenty-five years of 
his life. 

On the other hand, Lincoln was on the national 
stage hardly half a dozen years. Until his debate 
with Douglas in 1858, he was unknown outside of 
Illinois. So brief a record, however crowded, could 
not account for so great a renown. 

421 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



When we think of Washington we think of what 
he did. When we think of Lincoln we think of what 
he was. True, he wielded a greater and more des- 
potic authority than Washington or any other Ameri- 
can ever wielded. Nevertheless, he is remembered 
and revered more as a man of ideals than as a man 
of power. 

The smoke of battle has rolled away from Lincoln. 
We know he was the master of generals and the 
leader of armies; but that is not the picture which 
posterity carries in its mind's eye. The Kentucky 
log-cabin, and not the White House, is in the back- 
ground of that familiar picture. He is surrounded 
not with the gleaming bayonets of the martial mil- 
lions whom he commanded, but by the primeval 
forest of his Indiana wilderness, an axe rather than a 
sword in his hand. 

W T e dwell less on his triumphs at the bar than on 
his achievements in arithmetic on a wooden shovel, 
with a lump of charcoal for a pencil. Oftener we 
see him among his rustic familiars on the banks of 
the Sangamon than in the camp of his grand army 
on the Potomac, among his bucolic equals in the 
streets of Springfield than with his outriders in the 
avenues of Washington. His little Gettysburg ad- 
dress is worth more to us than all his official messages 
to Congress. 

422 



LESSONS FROM LINCOLN 



We mark the height of glory which he gained, but 
chiefly to measure his lifelong struggle upward from 
the depths of poverty and ignorance, whence he 
rose. 

A passionate protest assails the historian, who at- 
tempts to remove or modify a single trace of the 
disadvantages over which he triumphed. That is 
the Lincoln who is sacred to us. That is the Lincoln 
whom Americans claim wholly as their own. 

Other nations have bred great statesmen, but 
other nations have not bred them the way Lincoln 
was bred, "as God made Adam," said Lowell, "out 
of the very earth, unancestried, unprivileged, un- 
known." Napoleon might boast he made his mar- 
shals out of mud, but he did not make his statesmen 
from that material. In the upheaval of war, men 
sometimes rise from the bottom. In the work of 
peace, the upper crust generally remains intact. 
Even the French Revolution did not develop one 
peasant leader among its statesmen. 

Lincoln's greatness is still a mystery, to many a 
miracle. Possibly it may have been fundamentally 
the common sense of a common man. The world 
does not yet know, for it has no standard by which 
to try him, since he is the only common man who has 
walked in a high place without losing his commonness, 
the only man of the people in the pages of history 

423 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



whom no honor could exalt above his native sim- 
plicity. 

It was reserved for Lincoln to verify to the world 
the American contention, proclaimed in 1776, that 
all men are fit to govern themselves. It remains for 
future generations to catch the full meaning of his 
life. 

If his countrymen to-day should see ahead of them 
a task like his in the Civil War, would they dare to 
choose one of his bringing up for that task ? Would 
they not put their trust in training rather than in 
character — in an expert rather than in a man ? 

In the resistless progress of democracy, the race 
will learn " how much truth, how much magnanimity, 
and how much statecraft await the call of oppor- 
tunity in simple manhood, when it believes in the 
justice of God and the worth of man." Then, it 
may be, that the career of Lincoln will cease to be a 
riddle, and that a line of Lincolns will, like him, 
spring from the soil — yes, even from city pave- 
ments — and usher in the reign of common men and 
common sense. 

Meanwhile, all men may find in Lincoln's life 
an inspiration against every obstacle in their path- 
way, whether they be choppers, fishers, or ploughmen. 
As toil and hope redeemed him, so any one may 
redeem himself from poverty, illiteracy, and ob- 

424 



LESSONS FROM LINCOLN 



scurity, the disinherited may claim their inheritance, 
the unschooled may make their scantiest leisure their 
teacher, and the benighted hew their way out of the 
wilderness of ignorance. 

As Washington is the father of his country, so Lin- 
coln stands for the brotherhood of the American 
people. He himself passed through all classes and 
belonged to none. The boast of heraldry and the 
claim of privilege are covered with irony in the pres- 
ence of 

"This hind of princes peer, 
This rail-splitter, a true-born king of men." 

As the Christian church always returns from afar 
to its humble source in the rude manger of Bethlehem, 
so must Americans, while the name of Lincoln lasts, 
own their kinship with the lowborn, the poor, and the 
ignorant. 



425 



INDEX 



Abraham Lincoln 

Birthplace described, i, 6; ignorant of 
his family origin, 3 ; indifferent to 
ancestral claims, 4; descended from 
farmers and mechanics, 4; anec- 
dote of the War of 1812, 7; moved 
to Indiana, 7, 8 ; a hut in the wilder- 
ness, 9; his first shot, n; his 
mother's farewell, 13; his step- 
mother's good influence, 15, 16; 
schooling, 18, 19, 22; eagerness for 
books, 19, 20, 21, 22; great height 
and strength, 23, 24; accused of 
laziness, 25; boyhood dreams, 
25, 26, 27; early writings, 26, 
27; on a flatboat, 27; his 
first dollar, 28; moved to Illi- 
nois, 29, 30; left his father's roof, 
32; once more a flatboatman, 32, 
33; a slave auction, 34; arrived 
in New Salem, Illinois, 34; whipped 
a frontier bully, 36; clerk in a 
store, 36; his honesty, 37; loafing 
and dreaming, 38; failure in busi- 
ness, 43, 44, 45- 

Politician and Lawyer, Captain in 
Black Hawk War, 39, 40, 41 ; de- 
feated for Legislature, 42, 43 ; read- 
ing law, 46; postmaster, 47; sur- 
veyor, 48; elected to the Legisla- 
ture, 51; met Stephen A. Douglas, 
52; joined the Whigs, 52; reckless 
legislation, 54; took his stand 
against slavery, 55, 56, 57; defeated 
for Speaker, 57; leader of the 
minority, 57; his first love, 59; 
death of Ann Rutledge and his 
despair, 60, 61 ; moved to Spring- 
field, 62; his poverty, 62; prac- 

42 



tising law, 62 ; a group of brilliant 
associates, 64; early oratorical 
manner, 65; ceased to engage in 
personal controversies, 65; oppo- 
sition to Knownothingism, 66; 
lack of social graces, 67 ; met Mary 
Todd, 68; relations with her 
abruptly ended, 69; his desperate 
melancholy, 69; duel with Shields, 
70, 71; marriage, 72; defeated 
for Congressional nomination, 73 ; 
suspected of being a deist, 73; 
elected to Congress, 74; attracted 
the favor of Webster, 76; opposition 
to Mexican War, 77, 78; stumping 
Massachusetts for Zachary Taylor, 
79; first meeting with Seward, 80; 
foresaw slavery conflict, 80; intro- 
duced bill for abolition of slavery in 
the District of Columbia, 81 ; a 
disappointed applicant for office, 
81, 82 ; returned to law practice, 83 ; 
declined a Chicago practice, 84; 
his small fees, 85; his largest fee, 
85; discouraged unnecessary suits, 
86; habits on the circuit, 87, 88, 89; 
mastering Euclid, 90; important 
cases, 93, 94; rebuffed by Stanton, 
94, 95; realized lack of education, 
95; offended Mrs. Lincoln's sense 
of propriety, 98, 99; devotion to 
his children, 99, 100; office habits, 
100, 1 01; defended Jack Arm- 
strong's son, 102; confuted a wit- 
ness with an almanac, 103. 
Anti-slavery Leader, aroused by repeal 
of Missouri Compromise, 104; 
confronted Douglas, 109; candi- 
date for Senate in 1854, in; his 
stirring watchwords, 112; compli- 

7 



INDEX 



merited by Douglas, 112, 113; 
defeated for the Senate, 113; joined 
the Republican party, 114; the 
"lost speech," 114; supported for 
Vice-president, 115; candidate for 
the Senate against Douglas, 116; 
antagonized by Horace Greeley, 
117; friends opposed "house di- 
vided against itself" speech, 118 
119; opening of the debate with 
Douglas, 125; the Freeport ques- 
tions, 128; his position on the issues 
of the campaign, 131, 132; defeated 
by Douglas, 134; campaign ex- 
penses, 134. 
Candidate for President, his national 
leadership recognized, 137; Ohio 
speeches, 138; declined to be candi- 
date for President, 138, 139; re- 
considered and consented, 139; 
Cooper Union speech and its suc- 
cess, 140, 141, 142; his rhetoric 
praised by Yale professor, 142; 
regarded himself merely as a "dark 
horse" for President, 144; hailed 
as the rail-splitter, 146; western 
enthusiasm aroused for him, 147; 
warned friends against making 
pledges, 149; his nomination by 
the Chicago convention, 150; his 
reception of the news, 151, 152; 
a disturbing omen, 153; visited 
by the committee of notification, 
154; the East bitterly disappointed 
by his nomination, 155; Douglas's 
tribute, 155; campaign and elec- 
tion, 156; his election regretted 
by many Republicans, 161; con- 
structing his cabinet, 161; his 
silence and seclusion, 161; his 
beacon lights in the storm, 162; 
first speech after election, 162; 
his character portrayed by Hern- 
don, 162; his appearance shocks 
visitors, 1 63 ; position on secession, 
164, 165; feared his election would 
not be proclaimed by Senate, 166; 



farewell visit to stepmother, 167; 
his small estate, 168; last visit to 
his law office, 168, 169; farewell 
to Springfield, 171; cold reception 
in New York, 174; stirring address 
at Philadelphia, 175; warned by 
Pinkerton of an assassination plot 
in Baltimore, 175, 176; going 
through Baltimore by night, 177, 
178. 
President, 1 861-1863, coolly received 
in Washington, 179; his power to 
lead unsuspected, 180, 323; diffi- 
culty with Seward, 180, 181; sur- 
rounded by armed guards at his 
inauguration, 181; the center of a 
remarkable group of men, 183; 
his hat held by Douglas, 184; his 
appeal for the Union, 185; a time 
of great trial, 188; his apparent 
indifference, 189; overwhelmed by 
office seekers, 190; shocked Charles 
Francis Adams, 191, 192; extra- 
ordinary proposal by Seward 
brushed aside, 194, 195, 324, 325; 
appreciated by Seward, 195; ad- 
vised by General Scott to surrender 
Fort Sumter, 195; advice endorsed 
by cabinet, 196; his own determi- 
nation against surrender, 196; a 
sleepless night, 196; expedition to 
Fort Sumter ordered, 197; the 
attack on Sumter, 198, 199; leaders 
steadied by his coolness, 199; the 
surrender of Fort Sumter, 200; 
call for volunteers and extra session 
of Congress, 200; Douglas's offer 
of support, 200; the North rallied 
around the President, 201 ; hostility 
in the border states, 201, 202; 
eleven southern states in secession, 
202; wholesale resignations in the 
army, 202 ; Lee declined the 
Union command, 202; notable 
Southerners who stood by the 
Union, 203; no desertions among 
the private soldiers, 203 ; his anxiety 



428 



INDEX 



for the safety of the capital, 205 ; 
crippled state of the government, 
206, 207 ; his struggle with novel 
duties, 208; his greeting to Major 
Anderson, 209; first experience in 
diplomacy, 210; first message to 
Congress, 211; his bearing under 
the defeat at Bull Run, 213, 214; 
wild counsels ignored, 216; ap- 
pointed General McClellan to com- 
mand the army, 216; meeting the 
threat of war from Great Britain 
in the Trent case, 220; saving the 
border states from secession, 220, 
221, 222, 223; appointed Stanton 
Secretary of War, 224; faith in the 
Monitor, 227; grieving over loss of 
son, 287; depressed by failure of 
Peninsular Campaign, 228; a 
strange pledge, 229; letter to Greeley 
on emancipation, 312; extraordi- 
nary cabinet scene, 313 ; provisional 
emancipation proclamation, 229; 
disappointed again by McClellan, 
230; administration rebuked at 
the polls, 230; skilful handling of a 
cabinet crisis, 326, 327, 328; final 
Emancipation Proclamation, 315; 
seeking relief in jests, 231 ; attempt 
to force his resignation, 232; agony 
over defeats at the front, 232; ex- 
traordinary letter to Hooker, 344; 
ordered Hooker to pursue Lee, 235 ; 
appointed Meade to command, 236 ; 
blamed himself for not taking 
command in person after Gettys- 
burg, 238; anxiety over Vicksburg, 
238; nearly alone in standing by 
Grant, 240; rejoicing over Vicks- 
burg, 241, 242; "The father of 
waters goes un vexed to the sea," 
243; distressed by draft riots, 244; 
troubles with the Copperheads, 246; 
Gettysburg address, 248, 249, 250, 
251. 252. 
President, 1 864-1 865, reelection op- 
posed by radicals and Republican 

429 



leaders, 254; relations with poli- 
ticians, 255; sustained by the plain 
people, 256; renominated on a non- 
partisan ticket, 257; "Don't swap 
horses while crossing the river," 
258; on the firing line near Wash- 
ington, 259; disgusted with "gold 
sharks," 259 ; insisted on calling for 
500,000 men, 259, 260; heart 
racked by the wounded, 260, 261 ; 
retirement from ticket planned by 
leaders, 261, 262; admitted his 
own probable defeat, 262 ; saved 
by timely victories, 263; reelected, 
263; old friends among the Con- 
federates, 267; weeping for the loss 
of a Confederate brigadier, 267; 
no vacations, 269; religious creed, 
271 ; attitude toward Mrs. Lincoln, 
271; manner toward callers, 271, 
272, 273; modesty, 274; visited 
by Dennis Hanks, 274; kindness, 
275; reading, 276; diet, 277; office 
habits, 278; democracy, 280, 281; 
leadership, 281, 282, 283; advice 
to workingmen, 282, 283; children, 
285; diffident application for son's 
appointment on Grant's staff, 289; 
appreciation of private soldiers, 
293; caring for the sick and 
wounded, 294, 295 ; tribute to a 
mother, 297; ideal of the Union, 
299 ; saving soldiers under sentence, 
300, 301, 302, 303, 304; opposed to 
capital punishment, 302 ; received 
Frederick Douglass, first negro at 
White House, 320; invited Doug- 
lass to tea, 321 ; shaking hands with 
freedmen at New Year's reception, 
321; relations with Seward, 324, 
325; relations with Chase, 326; 
relations with Stanton, 328, 329, 
330, 331, 332; firmness toward 
cabinet, 333; indifferent to finance, 
334; relations with Chase, 335, 336, 
337; anecdote of relations with 
McClellan, 342, 343 ; giving gener- 



INDEX 



als the benefit of his common sense, 
346, 347; first meeting with Grant, 
351, 352; first meeting with Sheri- 
dan, 353, 354; only grievance 
against Grant, 354; estimates of, 
by Grant and Sherman, 354; pos- 
sessed the essential qualities of a 
gentleman, 355; frankness and 
courtesy toward his officers, 355; 
lack of jealousy and envy, 355; 
baffled attempts to supplant him 
with a military hero, 356; main- 
tained his own supremacy at all 
times, 357; attitude toward foes in 
arms, 359; efforts to conquer the 
South by magnanimity, 359; op- 
posed by the leaders of his party, 
360 ; objected to ironclad oath, 360 ; 
adopted the golden rule in states- 
manship, 360; at the Hampton 
Roads conference, 361, 362; 
planned to pay for slaves rejected 
by cabinet, 362 ; pressed the 
Thirteenth Amendment, 363, 364; 
a changed man at second inaugura- 
tion, 365 ; Booth pushed back by 
the police, 365 ; second inaugural, 
366, 367, 368; took its place beside 
the Gettysburg address, 369. 
Last Days, at the front with Grant, 
370; anxious to avert another 
battle, 372; in Richmond, 375; 
among the freedmen, 375, 376; in 
Davis's chair, 376; visited Mrs. 
Pickett, 377; discussed terms of 
surrender, 378; returning to Wash- 
ington, 378; prophetic lines from 
Macbeth, 378; his wife's strange 
dread, 379 ; no exultation in victory, 
382; called for "Dixie," 383; last 
speech, 383; a dream, 384; invited 
Grant to the theater, 385; anxious 
to hasten reconstruction, 386; 
"Enough lives have been sacri- 
ficed," 386; parting injunction to 
cabinet, 386 ; ignored Stanton's fears 
for his safety, 387; attitude regard- 



ing assassination, 387; invitation 
to theater declined by Grant, 387; 
future plans discussed with wife, 
388; her premonition, 388; at 
Ford's Theater, 389; last words, 
390; shot by Booth, 391; closing 
hours, 392, 393, 394, 395; death, 
395; tribute by Lowell, 380, 381; 
tribute by Whitman, 396; mourned 
by the nation, 397, 398; policy 
toward the South reversed, 398, 
399; Radicals welcomed the 
change, 399; punishment of the 
conspirators, 400; awful fate of 
companions in theater box, 400; 
value of estate, 400, 401 ; funeral 
and burial, 402, 403, 404; tribute 
in London Punch, 405, 406; a 
course of Lincoln reading, 407, 408, 
409, 410, 411, 412, 413; tributes 
by the poets, 414, 415, 416; lessons 
from his life, 417, 418, 419, 420, 
421, 422, 423, 424, 425. 

Habits and Manners: — 

Ambition, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 28. 
Education, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 

26, 27, 37, 38, 42, 44, 45, 46, 76, 

9°. 95. 2 48, 249. 
Friendships, 48, 49, SS, 145. 
Humor, 26, 27, 76, 89, 90, 231, 256, 

268, 269, 329, 330, 331. 
Kindness, 37, 88, 275, 294, 295, 296. 
Lawyer, 84, 85, 86, 90, 91, 92, 95, 

96. 
Literary Tastes, 101, 276. 
Melancholy, 61, 69, 97, 98. 
Oratory, 25, 65, 126. 
Personal Appearance, 15, 23, 33, 44, 

77, 79, 80, 88, 89, 95, 98, 99, 126, 

140, 163, 173, 191, 272. 
Physical Strength, 23, 24, 36, 43. 
Superstitions, 10, 100, 153, 169, 247, 

290, 384. 
Temperance, 26, 36, 66. 
Thrift, Lack of, 44, 84, 85. 



43° 



INDEX 



Opinions and Principles , 



Fatalism, 82, 153, 387. 
Honesty, 37, 45, 46, 63, 64, 92, 93, 
148, 149. 



Knownothingism, 66, 137. 
Religion, 70, 73, 118, 271, 313, 314. 
Slavery, 21, 34, 55, 56, 57, 66, 80, 81, 

no, 138,307, 308. 
Woman's Suffrage, 53. 



Abolition, its advocates few in number, 
108, 109; Lincoln's opposition to, 

131- 

Adams, Charles Francis, shocked by 
Lincoln's appearance, 191, 192; 
position in London saved by Lin- 
coln's diplomacy, 210. 

Anderson, Robert, his meeting with 
Lincoln, 209. 

Armstrong, Hannah, her son de- 
fended by Lincoln, 103; last visit 
to Lincoln, 168. 

Armstrong, Jack, whipped by Lincoln, 
36; his son defended by Lincoln, 

i°3- 

Baker, Edward D., early association 
with Lincoln, 64; at Lincoln's 
inauguration, 183. 

Booth, John Wilkes, pushed back by 
the police at the second inaugura- 
tion, 365; informed of Lincoln's 
plan to visit theater, 385; con- 
spiracy, 388, 389, 390; shot Lin- 
coln, 391; leg broken, 392; flight, 
392; death, 400. 

Breckinridge, John C, candidate for 
President, 158; as Vice-president 
declared Lincoln's election, 166; 
at Lincoln's inauguration, 183. 

Browning, Orville H., early associa- 
tion with Lincoln, 64. 

Bryant, William Cullen, presided 
over the Lincoln Cooper Union 
meeting, 141. 

Buchanan, James, escorted Lincoln 
to the Capitol, 181; at Lincoln's 
inauguration, 182. 

Burnside, Ambrose E., appointed to 
command by Lincoln, 343. 

Butler, Benjamin F., proposed for 

43 



President, in place of Lincoln; 262; 
anecdote of Lincoln in camp, 298; 
declared negroes contraband of 
war, 310. 

Cameron, Simon, member of the same 
Congress with Lincoln, 75; forced 
out of Lincoln's cabinet, 328. 

Chase, Salmon P., preferred for 
President by Lincoln, 138; his 
threat to the bankers, 207; issuing 
greenbacks, 218; relations with 
Lincoln, 326; resignation declined 
by Lincoln, 327; relations with 
Lincoln, 335, 336, 337. 

Clay, Henry, model and idol of Lin- 
coln, 53; his Compromise of 1850, 
106. 

Compromise of 1850, adopted, 105, 
106, 107. 

Davis, David, complained of Lin- 
coln's small fees, 85 ; fondness for 
Lincoln, 89; managed Lincoln's 
campaign in the convention of i860, 
147; not confided in by President- 
elect, 161; anecdote of Lincoln 
concerning capital punishment, 302. 

Davis, Jefferson, member of the same 
Congress with Lincoln, 75 ; assailed 
Douglas's "Freeport Heresy," 136; 
sighing for the old flag at Bull Run, 
212; denunciation of the Emanci- 
pation Proclamation, 318; advo- 
cated employment of negro soldiers, 
318; military training, 340; flight 
from Richmond, 373, 374; charged 
with complicity in Lincoln's assassi- 
nation, 399. 

Douglas, Stephen A., first acquaint- 
ance with Lincoln, 52; admitted to 
the Supreme Court with Lincoln, 



INDEX 



64; advocated "popular sover- 
eignty," 107, 108; mobbed in 
Chicago, 109; confronted by Lin- 
coln, 109, no, in; complimented 
Lincoln, 112, 113; reelection op- 
posed by Lincoln, 116; opening 
of the debate with Lincoln, 125; 
elected to the Senate, 134; rebuked 
by Democratic caucus of Senate, 
136; his tribute to Lincoln, 155; 
defeated for President, 156; held 
Lincoln's hat at inauguration, 184; 
supporting Lincoln at the outbreak 
of the war, 200; death, 201. 

Douglass, Frederick, first negro re- 
ceived at the White House, 320; 
invited to tea by Lincoln, 321. 

Dred Scott Decision, its political 
effect, 117. 

Emancipation, adopted for District of 
Columbia, 311; first proclamation, 
229; delayed by Lincoln for con- 
stitutional and political reasons, 
308, 309; discussed by Lincoln in a 
letter to Greeley, 312; extraordi- 
nary cabinet scene when draft of 
proclamation was presented, 314, 
315; signing of the final proclama- 
tion, 315; loss of the original copy, 
316; effect of the proclamation, 
317, 318; justified by events, 319. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, tribute to 
Lincoln's leadership, 283. 

Ericsson, John, inventor of the Moni- 
tor, 227. 

Everett, Edward, orator at Gettysburg, 
248; complimented Lincoln's ad- 
dress, 251. 

France, invaded Mexico, 218; Em- 
peror exalted over supposed fall of 
Washington, 259. 

Fremont, John C, nominated for 
President against Lincoln, 254. 

Garfield, James A., speech on Lincoln, 
398. 

Garrison, William Lloyd, mobbed in 
Boston, 55. 



Grant, Ulysses S., capture of Fort 
Donelson, 223; Vicksburg cam- 
paign, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242; per- 
sonal situation at the outbreak of 
the war, 338, 339; how he rose to 
command, 348, 349; his appoint- 
ment as General-in-chief, 350, 351, 
352; first meeting with Lincoln, 
35 1 ) 35 2 ! estimate of Lincoln, 354; 
visited by Lincoln at the front, 370; 
declined Lincoln's invitation to the 
theater, 387; stirred to retaliation 
by Lincoln's assassination, 399. 

Great Britain, conceded belligerent 
rights to the Confederacy, 209; 
protest of the United States as 
revised by Lincoln, 210; invasion of 
Mexico, 218; cotton famine, 218; 
threat of war in the Trent case, 219; 
conciliated by the United States, 
220. 

Greeley, Horace, member of Congress 
with Lincoln, 76; favored Douglas 
against Lincoln, 117; at the Lin- 
coln Cooper Union meeting, 141; 
praised Lincoln's speech, 142; 
favored letting the South go, 160; 
letter from Lincoln on emancipa- 
tion, 312; opinion of Lincoln, 328. 

Halleck, Henry W., rebuked by 
Lincoln, 333 . 

Hamlin, Hannibal, member of the 
same Congress with Lincoln, 75; 
proposed for President, 232. 

Hanks, Dennis, at the White House, 
274. 

Hanks, John, an anti-slavery anec- 
dote, 34; introduced in campaign 
of i860 rails split by Lincoln, 
146. 

Herndon, William H ., anecdote of 
Lincoln's devotion to the truth, 
93 ; letter to Senator Wilson on 
Lincoln, 162. 

Hooker, Joseph, instructions from 
Lincoln, 233; ordered to pursue 
Lee, 235; resigned, 236; received 



432 



INDEX 



extraordinary letter from Lincoln, 
344, 345- 

Jackson, Thomas J., tribute to, en- 
dorsed by Lincoln, 359. 

Johnson, Andrew, member of Con- 
gress with Lincoln, 76; nominated 
for Vice-president, 257; accession 
to the Presidency welcomed by the 
Radicals, 399. 

Kansas, the battle between slavery 
and anti-slavery, 113, 114. 

Kansas-Nebraska Act, adopted, 108. 

Lamon, Ward H., escorted Lincoln 
through Baltimore, 177, 178. 

Lee, Robert E., declined the command 
of the Union army and resigned his 
commission, 202, 203; first inva- 
sion of the North, 229; defeated 
at Gettysburg, 237; advocated 
employment of negro soldiers, 318; 
last stand, 373. 

Lincoln, Abraltam, grandfather of the 
President, came from Virginia to 
Kentucky, 2 ; killed by the Indians, 
2; his estate, 3. 

Lincoln, Mary Todd, her first meeting 
with Lincoln, 68; her temperament, 
69; relations with Lincoln abruptly 
ended, 69; brought on duel be- 
tween Lincoln and Shields, 71 ; 
marriage, 72; brothers and sisters 
in the Confederac3 r , 267, 26S; 
confided in by her husband, 271; 
with her husband at Grant's head- 
quarters, 371 ; a strange dread, 
379; a premonition, 38S; suffering 
and death, 400, 401. 

Lincoln, Nancy Hanks, mother of 
the President, girlhood and ante- 
cedents, 5; married to Thomas 
Lincoln, 5; her superiority, 6; 
death and burial, 13, 14. 

Lincoln, Robert Todd, anecdotes of 
his boyhood, 99, 100; visited at 
school by his father, 142; student 
at Harvard, 285; appointed on 
Grant's staff, 289. 



Lincoln, Sarah Bush Johnston, step- 
mother of the President, marriage, 
14, 15; visited by stepson on his 
way to Washington, 167; mourned 
her stepson's death, 303, 304. 

Lincoln, Thomas, father of the Presi- 
dent, saved from the Indians, 3; 
a "wandering, laboring boy," 5; 
sober but without ambition, 5; 
married to Nancy Hanks, 5; car- 
penter, 5; his illiteracy, 6; farmer, 
6; moved to Indiana, 7, 8; second 
marriage, 14, 15; moved to Illi- 
nois, 29, 30. 

Lincoln, Thomas, "Tad," life in the 
White House, 285, 286; pretended 
appointment as lieutenant in the 
army, 288. 

Lincoln, William Wallace, life in the 
White House, 285, 286; death, 
287. 

Lowell, James Russell, impatient of 
Lincoln's conservatism, 222; esti- 
mate of Lincoln's statesmanship, 
283; the Harvard Commemoration 
Ode, 380, 381. 

Massachusetts, Lincoln awakened by 
its Free Soil Movement, 80. 

McClellan, George B., lent his 
private car to Douglas in the 
campaign against Lincoln, 123; 
appointed by Lincoln to the 
command of the army, 216; dis- 
astrous Peninsular Campaign and 
retirement from command, 228; 
recalled to command and victory 
of Antietam, 229; finally relieved 
of command, 230; candidate for 
President against Lincoln, 262 ; 
anecdote of relations with Lincoln, 

342. 343- 

Mcade, George G., appointed to com- 
mand the Army of the Potomac, 
236. 

Missouri Compromise, repealed, 104. 

Negro, The, Lincoln's opinion of his 
racial status, 131 ; his service to the 



2S 



433 



INDEX 



Union indispensable, 317, 318; his 
deportation favored by Lincoln, 
319; Lincoln favored giving him 
conditional suffrage, 319; Lin- 
coln's respect for his feelings, as 
well as rights, 321; recognized 
at second inauguration, 364. 

Pembcrton, John C, surrendered 
Vicksburg, 241, 242. 

Phillips, Wendell, disgusted by Lin- 
coln's nomination, 155; threatened 
in the streets, 161 ; denunciation of 
Lincoln, 308. 

Pickett, George E., charge at Gettys- 
burg, 237; a friendly visit from 
Lincoln, 377. 

Pinkerton, Allan, warned Lincoln of 
an assassination plot in Balti- 
more, 175, 176. 

Polk, James K., his Mexican policy 
opposed by Lincoln, 77. 

Popular Sovereignty, advocated by 
Douglas, 108. 

Porter, David D., entertained Lincoln 
on his flagship, 370. 

Rutledge, Ann, Lincoln's early sweet- 
heart, 59; death, 60. 

Scott, W infield, "Wayward sisters, de- 
part in peace," 160; first instruc- 
tions from Lincoln, 164; his plans 
to preserve peace at Lincoln's in- 
auguration, 181; advised Lincoln 
to surrender Fort Sumter, 195; re- 
fused to go with the South, 203; 
in his dotage, 207; recommended 
McClellan's appointment, 341. 

Seward, William H., first meeting 
with Lincoln, 80; preferred for 
President by Lincoln, 138; his 
nomination in i860 deemed a cer- 
tainty, 143, 144; defeated by Lin- 
coln, 150; for compromise, 160; 
disappointed in effort to control 
Lincoln's cabinet, 180, 181; his 
extraordinary proposal brushed 
aside by Lincoln, 194, 195; protest 
to the British government revised 



by Lincoln, 209, 210; meeting the 
threat of war from Great Britain 
in the Trent case, 220; relations 
with Lincoln, 324, 325; resignation 
declined by Lincoln, 327; stabbed 
in bed, 394; first news of Lincoln's 
death, 402. 
Sheridan, Philip H ., won the battle of 
Winchester, 263; cleared the Shen- 
andoah, 264; personal situation 
at the outbreak of the war, 339, 
340; first meeting with Lincoln, 
353, 354; victory at Five Forks, 

373- 

Sherman, John, introduced his brother 
to the President, 189. 

Sherman, William T., amazed by 
Lincoln's flippancy, 189; relieved 
of command, 224; captured At- 
lanta, 263; marched to the sea, 
264; personal situation at the out- 
break of the war, 339, 340; esti- 
mate of Lincoln, 354. 

Shields, James, duel with Lincoln, 71. 

Spain, invaded Mexico, 218. 

Stanton, Edwin M ., his early rebuff 
to Lincoln, 94, 95; feared the fall 
of Washington before Lincoln's 
inauguration, 166; called to the 
cabinet, 224; alarmed by the vic- 
tory of the Merrimack, 226; rela- 
tions with Lincoln, 328, 329, 330, 
331 ; feared for Lincoln's safety, 

387- 

Stephens, Alexander H., member of 
Congress with Lincoln, 76; letter 
from Lincoln on secession, 165; 
at the Hampton Roads conference, 
361. 

Sumner, Charles, favored Lincoln's 
retirement, 262; at the White 
House, 273; slavery amendment 
not favored by Lincoln, 363. 

Taney, Roger B., at Lincoln's inaugu- 
ration, 183. 

Taylor, Zachary, supported by Lin- 
coln, 79. 



434 



INDEX 



Thomas, George H., dispersed Con- 
federates in Tennessee, 265. 

Thompson, Jacob, escape favored by 
Lincoln, 389; arrest ordered by 
Stanton, 399. 

Trumbull, Lyman, his fiancee shielded 
by Lincoln, 71; elected to the 
Senate by Lincoln's aid, 113. 

War, The Civil, the South determined 
not to abide by Lincoln's election, 
158; South Carolina the first to 
move, 159; northern efforts for 
peace, 160; secession of New York 
City proposed, 160; business panic, 
160; Lincoln's position on seces- 
sion, 164, 165; seven states seceded, 
188; Fort Sumter's surrender 
advised by Scott, 195; similar 
advice from the cabinet, 196; expe- 
dition to Fort Sumter ordered, 197; 
the attack on Sumter, 198, 199; the 
surrender, 200 ; the response of the 
North, 201 ; eleven states in seces- 
sion, 202 ; wholesale resignation of 
army officers, 202; no desertions 
among the privates, 203 ; the Sixth 
Regiment of Massachusetts attacked 
in Baltimore, 204; Washington 
cut off and defenceless, 204, 205, 
206; Bull Run, 212, 213, 214; 
McClellan appointed to command, 
216; the border states saved from 
secession, 220, 221, 222, 223; 
Grant's capture of Fort Donelson, 
223 ; fall of New Orleans and Mem- 



phis, 224; battle of Hampton 
Roads, 225, 226, 227, 228; Penin- 
sular Campaign and McClellan's 
retirement from command, 228; 
second Bull Run, 229; McClellan 
recalled to command and victory 
of Antietam, 229; McClellan 
finally relieved of command, 230; 
battles of Fredericksburg and 
Chancellors ville, 232 ; Gettysburg 
campaign, 234, 235, 236, 237, 238; 
Vicksburg campaign, 238, 239, 240, 
241, 242; the draft, 243, 244, 245; 
battles of Chattanooga, Lookout 
Mountain, and Missionary Ridge, 
247; battles of the Wilderness, 
Spottsylvania, and Cold Harbor, 
254; Washington in danger, 258; 
gold rose to 285, 259; capture of 
Atlanta, 263; battie of Winchester, 
263; Grant, Lieutenant-general, 
350, 351, 352; Sherman's march, 
353; the Wilderness campaign, 353; 
final campaign against Lee, 372, 
373; Richmond in flames, 374; 
entered by the Union troops, 374; 
Appomattox, 378. 

Webster, Daniel, recognition of Lin- 
coln, 76; amazed by smallness of 
Lincoln's legal charges, 85 ; favored 
Compromise of 1850, 106. 

Whitman, Walt, "O Captain! My 
Captain !" 386. 

Wilson, Henry, letter from Herndon 
on Lincoln, 162. 



435 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT 

The Boy and the Man 
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